Fixing the World, Bang-for-the-Buck Edition: A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast

World leaders at the U.N. recently began a yearlong conversation about global goals for the next 15 years. Many will rightly talk about poverty, food, water and the environment. Few will mention energy. Yet we should.

Access to energy is one the most important drivers of development, e.g. improving living standards during the Industrial Revolution to more recently, helping lift 680 million Chinese out of poverty. Currently almost 3 billion people, mostly in Africa and South-east Asia, live without modern energy, instead using wood and dung as a source of fuel.

Air quality has improved dramatically in rich countries over the past century. Yet air pollution is still a huge problem, especially in the developing world. It kills about 7 million people each year, accounting for one out of every eight deaths globally. But the most deadly air pollution comes from inside people's houses, because 2.8 billion people still use firewood, dung and coal for cooking and keeping warm, breathing polluted air inside their homes every day.

Washington Post Opinions

Hold the accolades on China’s ‘green leap forward’ By Bjorn Lomborg, Published: April 21, 2011