We have seen the relationship between the human development index (HDI) and energy consumption.
There are two parts to the curve – a linear part until about 0.9 HDI and a plateauing part then onwards. Let’s focus on the linear. While attributing a causality, that energy consumption is the reason why some countries have high HDIs, may be a tricky conclusion to make, it nonetheless can be established without much trouble that countries that are behind the curve have the right to improve. It becomes a matter of distributive justice.
And that threshold energy consumption is around 25,000 kWh per person per year. The number of people that crossed this threshold is about 38%. Here is something already interesting. The percentage of people who crossed 0.9 HDI is only 13%. The difference between the two numbers is mainly due to China and Russia – large, reasonably energy-consuming countries that still need to climb the HDI ladder.
The amount of additional energy required for the below-threshold is about 80,000 TWh, which is about half of today’s global consumption of 160,000 TWh! If you are curious about the “excess” energy used by the top countries, it is 40,000 TWh. The shortfall and the excess don’t match because of the choice of 25,000 kWh, which is arbitrary and is not an average.
Alan D. Pasternak, Global Energy Futures and Human Development: A Framework for Analysis, 2000
Global energy consumption: Our World in Data
World Population Review: Energy Consumption
