Energy Consumption Per Capita – Part 2

Roughly 400 million of India’s 1.2 billion inhabitants lack access to electricity—more than the combined populations of the United States and Canada.

2020 the average annual per capita energy supply of about 40 percent of the world’s population (3.1 billion people, which includes nearly all people in sub-Saharan Africa) was no higher than the rate achieved in both Germany and France in 1860! In order to approach the threshold of a dignified standard of living, those 3.1 billion people will need

Also reducing the impact of economic improvement is the large and fast-growing population; gains in output are largely offset by increases in population. India’s GDP per capita is only around $2,000, which does not even merit a ranking in the world’s top hundred by that metric.

Across a wide range of indicators, consumption growth is outpacing population growth. To get a feel for how this consumption may increase in the future, we need to look at resource and income inequality today, and at how the gap between materially rich and poor communities might narrow.