This is an hour. Good morning and welcome to the Washington Post live. Im a Senior Writer at the Washington Post and im very pleased to welcome today two experts on energy policy. My first guest is a u. N. Undersecretary general and an expert on africa. And also former u. S. Energy secretary, a very warm welcome to you both. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Frances were delighted to have you both. So, let me start with you, if i may. Could you give us a global snapshot of Energy Poverty, where things stand, what populations are affected, and what the kind of repercussions are for gender equity and employment in the areas of the world that is most affected . Thank you, thanks again for having us. To just talk about what the Rockefeller Foundation has done and under the leadership of secretary moniz is looking at how we can end this Global Partnership and Energy Poverty. As you asked and rightly so, what does the Global Landscape say, let me start with my own continent. Africa is 3. 23 of electricity generated. Asiapacific is 5. 8 . I think thats why were look at this globaly. Because its africa but also south and central america, 4. 9 . When you look at those three, africa. 3. 2 , india, 5. 8 , and south and central africa, america, at just 12. , you see theres still large swaths of the global space that is energy poor. Dr. Songwe when we talk about it related to the covid crisis, that is one of the reasons why the Rockefeller Foundation and poverty university wanted to do this together and many others on this commission was to say, you know, one of the things that the covid pandemic has shown us, if we dont have energy, we cant even solve the health crises. We have a lot of hospitals which dont have enough access to energy. And so universal access is a critical part what have we are considering as part of the puzzle for ending Energy Poverty. That means essentially looking at the whole stream of how you do both generation transmission and distribution and i think one of the things that we have seen in this supply chain is there is a fault line in the distribution piece of the puzzle. Nd so a lot of the work that testimony has championed has been around what we can do with this integrated [indiscernible] which is how do you bring the whole system, link the generation and transition to the distribution and ensure we can get to the last mile. Low Energy Consumption across the globe cannot give us the kind of Going Forward better that were looking for. We need less than 30 of our india and less than 5 of china has access in the rural areas to sustainable he, affordable electricity. So this is i think a global concern and essentially what were trying to understand is ow one can do it in a way that [indiscernible] the public and private sector and ensures we have the right kind of revelation, to do it in a way that is sustainable. Frances before we move on, i want to ask you about the peoples lives. You mentioned is this a big role, urban divide, are we talking about people cooking on with wood . How does it affect gender . I would like to get a sense of the personal impact before we move on to secretary moniz. Dr. Songwe im glad you asked that question. We have 23 million women across the world. Not just in africa. But across the world who actually die from respiratory diseases every year because theyre using poor cooking devices and thats the energy linkage. So, yes, it is a rural urban divide as well. In many of the african countries, the same is true for south america and the same is true for south asia. The cities tend to have 70 or more access to energy, the rural areas 20rks or less access to energy. And the women in particular. And this is where were also looking at an inclusive and more Sustainable Design for ending Energy Poverty, which ensures that we can protect the trees from trees, for example. Theres a lot of work going on to see how we can restore our green environment, particularly in ethiopia where we are. But you can do that and ensure its going to be sustainable if women still need to go out and look for wood to cook. So i think theres a whole other conversation and im sure that secretary moniz will. Scuss how we can do better frances secretary moniz, youre one of the cochairs of Global Mission to end Energy Poverty. Can you talk about how the commission was formed, who the commissioners are and weve been talking about the developing world right now about but are we talking about a problem thats also in more developed countries around the world . Secretary moniz yes, frances. Let me first make a couple of comments, panding on what vera said. As has already been hinted at, we will be focusing on the commission first, on electricity, well come back to that. But the cooking issue that you have raised is so critical. Theres a documentary recently out called switch on that i would recommend. It has its a terribly emotional scene in terms of the medical requirements of women and children suffering the respiratory consequences of indoor biomass cooking. In fact, [indiscernible] a doctor said that all of his patients was women and children with respiratory illness. And until that is addressed and vera [indiscernible] we cannot have womens empowerment, we cannot have them engaged in the economy until these issues are resolved. So thats very, very important. Now, on the commission, to go back to that, first of all, there are three cochairs. Yself, with my hat at m. I. T. Where the principle analysis was done. But rod shaw, the c. E. O. Of the Rockefeller Foundation, is a cochair. And raj particularly emphasizes that the Rockefeller Foundation supported this work because addressing Energy Poverty is a necessary condition for addressing poverty more generally. So, that really is the perspective that he brought to the table. E third cochair, hakeem dasima, is the president of the African Development bank and clearly while Subsaharan Africa is not the exclusive focus of the commission, its a major focus and so the African Development bank brings that perspective of how were going bring together the capital to have the kinds of transitions we have. For example, investors in infrastructure like africa 50. But government and quasi government officials who will have enormous possibilities that we will perhaps come back to and a number of individuals who have long experience in for example, initiatives such as power africa, which was started in the Obama Administration to address the electricity and lightning needs in in africa specifically. But youre also right that the Energy Access issue is not one just in developing countries. Clearly, theres a major focus. Hundreds of millions of people without proper Energy Access. One could argue about 1 3 without adequate Energy Services. But right here in the United States if one goes to things like the native american lands, one finds a very, very disheartening lack of Energy Services in many cases. So this is a big problem. Its absolutely critical. And i would just say that as well, you mentioned briefly covid. When the commission started just over a year ago, i dont think any of us dreamed that today because of the covid crisis we probably have more people without electricity access than we had a year ago. Because many who gained access, you know, these countries always get the cold first when theres a global event. Does not c impact help people afford this. Thats going to involve partnerships between utilities, investors. What do those partnerships look like . And what are the barriers in different parts of the world . What are you up against . We have done a couple of actually were not up against as much as it is trying to see whether we can bring the right coalitions together. And i think, the coalition and the commission is one of them. They talked about the fact that we have that in the Public Sector and some of Civil Society with us and actually the academics as well. I think, for example, the artner that we have, for example, with westward africa and also the Sustainable Development group that was set up by the united nations, essentially that brings together a very substantial group of private sector investors, billions of dollars, interested in looking for Renewable Energy. And when you look at the african continent, only 2 of global new Renewable Energy capacity was installed in africa over the last 10 years. So for all the conversations that we have around Renewable Energy, and the need for more investment, africa has only been able to attract 2 of that. One of the things were trying to understand is what is it that is stopping or hindering those kinds of investments . A big part of it. And thats one of the things the commission talks about when they talk about the integrated framework is the fact that the Utility Companies because of not the appropriate tariff adjustments and thats the conversation you had, what are we up against . Were up against Affordable Energy and the financing to tpwhailed Affordable Energy. One of the issues is how can we do projects with local currency . When you do a plant, but citizens most often are paying for that energy in local currency that is also subject to the variations of micro economics and the covid crisis and led many of them depreciating for example, it becomes very expensive. They cannot afford to pay any of those p. P. A. So we need to be aible to find ome way of doing reflective and to do that we need to move to more local currency financing of the investments were putting in place. Of course, its quite an important one to put investment into those sectors. Another thing that is very important is building local, Technical Assistance for africa. What were doing actually, were partners with the commission now and others, is to launch what were calling the team energy africa, which is essentially bringing together all the frican industrial manufactures of Energy Together to say what can we do . Theres a team europe. There was up with in africa that was launched by the United States, and we hope we can form a cluster when they come under the d. S. C. And others to say we have to do this in partnership. Probably when we do that, we can find local insurance companys that can buy this investment. I think its a cluster of things. First, you need to bring in continental producers. Weve seen that in india because there are indian supplier of energies in the energy sector. We can see that access is increasing at a much faster rate. We believe we should emulate Something Like that on the african continent. And hopefully there as well. Is there one small model that things are working well that youre trying to broaden . Well, i think that , you know, the the the attraction of independent energy has done really well. Many other countries have started that seneca, south africa has been the leader in this. We see a lot of progress and investment. A project that was launched by the i. S. C. Is the solid power project, which has been scaling forward. We have it in seneca. In morocco were doing something. We need standardization of this program. You can standardize it. Investors know what to expect. The country know what is to offer and it makes it much easier to close on those deals. Secretary moniz, could you talk to us about other progress that could make a big difference in this area . Secretary moniz certainly the Technology Progress in providing energy and in particular clean energy has been very, very dramatic. Solar energy, wind energy, including the storage that one needs to be able to use the for example, the solar energy at night as opposed to during the day, the rapid cost reductions here, i think are going to provide dramatic opportunities o have support for african buildout quite rapidly of the new the new energy technologies. But a couple of points i do want to emphasize, we have to recognize, and one of the one of the pill lars really of the pillars really of the commissions work is we cannot look at offgrid and ongrid solutions as two different things. We need the integration of on and offgrid solutions. Because the issues it isnt about ideology in terms of how one best to does to have distributed generation or the like. Its about universal access. And the universal Access Solutions are going to have to be looked at in an integrated way with the combined if urban and rural populations of these countries. Technology is going to allow that to happen more easily. But i think actually its actually worth stating that just like everywhere in the world, the projections, the demographic projections continued enormous urbanization in in africa. O so i think we need to not have, you know, everything looks like a nail because i have a hammer. We have multiple technologies, multiple ways of integrating them, using i. T. You alluded to i. T. For example. Using i. T. To to really serve the population that needs universal access. In sing that, again something you alluded to earlier for instance, maybe well come back to it, but the reality is, and frankly, when i speak with africans who are very knowledgeable about the, you know, the developments and energy that are needed, that would include vera, the they all say that, look, we have to sahara africa, in sub africa a Real Development on industrialization. And so thats going to require well certainly for some considerable period a more internal utilization in africa of the enormous natural gas finds that have been happening in both east and west africa. We have to keep in mind the goals, Economic Development, universal access, and of course, as low carbonate trajectory as can be realized in putting together a coherent solution. And again, universal access, integration of on and off grid, focus on development and as vera said, creating financially viable systems to provide the the electricity, the energy, not with a short term focus but with a longterm focus all must come together. And it will be technology, but it will also be things like significant elevation and best practices, etc. , in terms of regulation, without stable, predictable regulation, it will be very hard for the kind of load serving entitys that we need to to really put in the Capital Investment to serve the peoples needs. Just quickly if you can, and these are all big questions. Tell me where the private sector fits in here . How do we make sure that they t in the interest of Broad Development rather their own interest . Whats their role, and how do you regulate their investment . Secretary moniz the private sector, theyre absolutely essential because otherwise it will be hard to see the capital accumulation that one needs to to realize the Development Hat we are hoping for. Again, i dont see its no different in africa or anywhere else. If its private capital coming , some certainty for a substantial period, call it 20 years, a concession being awarded for example with specific mile stones for universal access, reliable access to to electricity that has to come. And frankly and vera could comment on this probably more expertly than i, but lets just say those conditions are very uneven at the moment in in sub saharan africa. I think we need to bring the best practices, which have been demonstrated in various places to bear. For example, one of the recommendations of the commission is to establish an African School of regulation, maybe at one of the universities in africa, for example, and really bring a cutting edge experience of regulation across the globe to bear, so that there can be more uniformity. Uniformity across countries will also encourage other important developments such as Regional Power pools where several countries can coming to regionally and provide more efficient, more reliable, more affordable electricity as a regional effort. Clearly, if you have different policies, different rules across boundaries, that becomes very, very difficult. So theres a lot to do. But by the way, were very encouraged in terms of progress towards this Regulatory School for example of being founded, well see. But its looking quite promising. Were short of time. But i will able to ask you a couple of questions sent in by readers. Im going to read this. This is barry moore from virginia who asks how would you characterize chinas Economic Impact in africa . Thank you for that question. And let me use that question to answer a little bit of what were talking about. China africa has decided, you know, were going to go to net zero. However, between now and getting to net zero, africa still needs to grow. We need to you know, insure that our economies have the right Energy Production to go. One of the areas where africa has an abundance of raw material for Energy Production is gas and hydro. Hydro is one of the leading, you now, builders [ind