Efficient energy utilization should contribute to poverty alleviation in developing countries. A society that successfully shifted from non-modern sources of energy consumption to modern ones is said to witness more significant development. In developing countries such as Nigeria, inefficient modern energy use is connected with the high poverty level among the populace. Targeting assistance to improve modern energy utilization in society that directly affects people experiencing poverty might enhance a healthy society, improve the physical environment, and increase production in society. This research tends to establish the nexus between three parameters: modern energy efficiency health improvement wealth, modern energy efficiency environmental protection wealth, and the modern energy efficiency increased production wealth, relationships. The research will test the hypothesis that the higher the modern energy utilization, the lower the poverty in society. It will also respond to the question of how efficient modern energy utilization can alleviate poverty in society.
TopIntroduction
Modern energy utilization against the traditional one is ultimately one of the ways that would alleviate poverty in modern-world developing countries. Due to a lack of the required education and limited technological know-how folks in developing countries mostly rely on traditional sources of energy which are demanded for use and are accompanied by numerous environmental consequences that increase global warming which contributes to poor agricultural yield in a given society. Relying on traditional sources of energy not only promote delay and retard progress, but it has also proven to be endangering agricultural activities which are the mainstay of the majority of low-income countries.
Energy poverty contributes to the worsening situation of the already battling vicious circle of poverty in the developing world. There is a strong connection between energy poverty, which is the situation in which a household lacks a socially and materially necessitated level of energy services in the home (Bouzarovski, 2014, p. 277), and absolute poverty in a given society. A society where the majority of people rely on traditional sources of energy tends to distance itself from modern innovations and human creativity that would aid production that would generate more individual, family, group, and state incomes.
To fight poverty- situational, generational, absolute, relative, urban or rural poverty there is a dire need for developing countries especially in Asia and Africa to drastically shift their economy from consumptive to productive. Adopting a productive economy means enhancing gross production via the use of modern energy and equipment. In other words, for the less developed world to effectively fight poverty, they need to carry out an 'energy revolution' by abandoning crude traditional energy and significantly promoting new energy utilization in all the segments of their society.
The majority of the households in Nigeria and generally in third-world countries depend on biomass (firewood) energy at home, and endosomatic energy at work and business environment. Relying on the traditional sources of energy in Nigeria's haphazard energy crisis increases the level of poverty and retard production and a progressive economy. The Nigerian energy crisis is caused by inadequate power sector financing, non-payment of electricity bills, corruption, and the shutdown of key power facilities owing to infrastructure degradation and non-performance. These have resulted in increasing poverty, slowed economic activity, a subpar healthcare system, environmental deterioration, and significant development setbacks (Onyejelam, 2015). A society that relies on traditional sources of energy is a distance far away from large-scale production of all kinds, it will depend on crude equipment that requires only physical human and animal energy to operate. In other words, society will be lacking in modern productive capacity and capability because as classified by Adam Smith out of the four distinct stages which mankind passes through: -1st, the Age of Hunters, 2dly, the Age of Shepherds; 3dly, the Age of Agriculture; and 4thly, the Age of Commerce” to develop, the society will be in either the first or the second (Paganelli, 2022, p. 98).
The majority of the local dwellers in Nigeria solemnly depend on traditional sources of energy for daily personal and business needs. The reliance on traditional sources of energy pinpoints that the people are at the primitive stage of development where crude instruments and biomass are utilized to execute the work that would aid human existence (Rostow, 1991, p. 4). In the contemporary global village for a society to develop, there is a strong need to shift to a modern production style via the utilization of modern energy sources. To fight poverty in developing countries such as Nigeria the government, policymakers, and thinktanks have to draw a roadmap that would redirect the society to the absolute utilization of modern energy through tripartite synergy that includes modern energy efficiency⇒-health improvement ⇒wealth, modern energy efficiency⇒environmental protection⇒wealth and modern energy efficiency⇒increased production⇒wealth.