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en.lighten at Rio +20
Moving to a Green Economy Can Begin with Changing a Light Bulb
By: Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Kandeh Yumkella, Director-General, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
As the Rio +20 conference on sustainable development enters its final phase, the same spirit that moved nations to adopt the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 twenty years ago, needs to be embraced by global leaders.
One of the easiest and quickest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is the phase-out of inefficient lighting technologies. According to the en.lighten initiative, a public-private partnership involving governments, the private sector and the UN, five percent of global electricity consumption could be saved every year through a transition to efficient lighting. This would mean annual savings of more than US$ 110 billion.
The initiative has set the target to achieve the global phase-out of conventional incandescent lighting by the year 2016. This is an ambitious goal, but it is happening in many parts of the world already. A growing number of developing and emerging economies are adopting efficient lighting phase-out initiatives including Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Mexico and Malaysia.
This month, Brazil is implementing ambitious standards to phase-out inefficient incandescent lamps which will save residential consumers over two billion USD in reduced electricity bills each year. If Brazil extended this legislation to include commercial, industrial and street lighting applications, the country could save close to US$ 4 billion and reduce carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to 400,000 cars being removed from the road.
With support from the UN, the Government of Nigeria will soon be distributing LED lamps to underprivileged families. On a wider scale, the complete transition to efficient lighting throughout Africa could reduce electrical demand enough to electrify over 14 million presently un-serviced households. It could also help to improve electrical service in existing areas.
One of the goals of the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative is to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency by 2030. For the lighting sector, this goal can be reached in only four years with the 2016 target date to phase-out inefficient incandescent lamps worldwide. Nearly 50 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America have joined the en.lighten initiative and have made the commitment to shift to efficient lighting. Yet close to 100 countries are still yet to do so.
We call on country leaders, the private sector and international agencies to work closely together to ensure that the 2016 inefficient lighting global phase-out target is achieved.
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