Balancing energy transition: Assessing decent living standards and future energy demand in the Global South

S Chatterjee, A Mastrucci, L Niamir, K Ashok, A Sreenivas, S Dukkipati, V Daioglou, O Edelenbosch, S Pelz, B Boza-Kiss, P Kumar, D Ürge-Vorsatz · Energy Research & Social Science · 2024

We ask how India can meet decent living standards while curbing residential energy demand

Balancing energy transition: Assessing decent living standards and future energy demand in the Global South — key figure — Residential space-cooling energy demand in India to 2050 across models (Chatterjee et al., Energy Res. & Soc. Sci. 2024, Fig. 3)

We argue that blanket energy-demand reduction is not advisable across the Global South, where critical gaps in basic services still leave 'decent living standards' (DLS) unmet. Most energy-demand scenarios overlook DLS achievement, and models struggle to represent the distributional detail it requires. Drawing on a set of detailed sectoral and integrated assessment models, we operationalise four DLS dimensions — sufficient space and durable housing, thermal comfort, access to basic appliances, and clean cooking — for the residential sector in India.

We find that a substantial rise in residential floor area will not guarantee better DLS, because much new housing remains non-durable. Space cooling demand increases by almost 126–800% by 2050, yet only 15% of the population gains access to residential air conditioning, concentrated in urban buildings. The headline tension is that growing well-being and rising service demand pull against the energy savings climate mitigation calls for.

Clean cooking is the counter-case. Access rises to almost 80% under current policies while cooking energy demand falls 24–49% by 2050, as efficiency improvements let most households reach the service with less energy. This suggests that high-efficiency measures can reconcile the seemingly divergent goals of improving well-being and reducing energy demand — but only where the technology and policy align.

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Cite

@article{chatterjee_balancing_2024,
	title = {Balancing energy transition: {Assessing} decent living standards and future energy demand in the {Global} {South}},
	copyright = {All rights reserved},
	issn = {22146296},
	shorttitle = {Balancing energy transition},
	url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S2214629624003487},
	doi = {10.1016/j.erss.2024.103757},
	language = {en},
	urldate = {2024-10-22},
	journal = {Energy Research \& Social Science},
	author = {Chatterjee, Souran and Mastrucci, Alessio and Niamir, Leila and Ashok, Kaveri and Sreenivas, Ashok and Dukkipati, Srihari and Daioglou, Vassilis and Edelenbosch, Oreane and Pelz, Setu and Boza-Kiss, Benigna and Kumar, Poornima and Ürge-Vorsatz, Diána},
	month = sep,
	year = {2024},
	pages = {103757},
}