Sustainable Energy Reaching Rural Ethiopia
The same day global leaders were gathering at the United Nations in New York to sign an historic climate agreement, my family and I stood in front of a tiny solar-powered trailer on the side of a dusty, dirt-packed road in southern Ethiopia.
The tiny SolarKiosk, nestled near traditional thatched huts and surrounded by cows and goats, sells different-sized solar lanterns, as well as power for mobile phones and bottles of Fanta.
The people we met here were not thinking about global climate deals brokered in Paris. But villages, such as Bulbula, and countries, such as Ethiopia, are surely in the minds of government leaders assembling at the UN to ink a 32-page document that is our last great hope for curbing global carbon pollution at the levels needed to avoid dangerous climate change.
The Paris agreement is undoubtedly big on ambition; more than 170 countries signed the accord last week and most, including Ethiopia, have also committed to their own carbon pollution reduction plans. The big question is whether countries such as Ethiopia, India, China and even the U.S. can deliver on their promises so that the agreement can achieve its ultimate goal of limiting global temperature rise to well below two degrees Celsius.
International Organization for Migration