ENERGY INEQUITIES WITHIN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES - AN IMPORTANT CONCERN IN THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL-CHANGE DEBATE

A major theme of development during the half century since the end of World War II has been that of closing the affluence gap between the ri cher and poorer countries of the world. It is thus not surprising that a principal focus of the worldwide discussions on global environmenta l change during the past decade has been the issue of equity between c ountries, The evolving concept of sustainable development has drawn at tention to the need of maintaining some equity between generations, In contrast, there has been relatively little attention paid to issues o f equity within countries, In many parts of the world, the disparities within countries are as large as those between the developing and the industrialized countries, and these inequities need to be addressed m uch more explicitly than has been the case so far, In this paper, diff erences in energy use in South Asia between the low income and middle class households for cooking, transportation, and electricity, are use d as illustrations of the disparities within countries, These have imp lications in terms of the impact of each group on the global environme nt, as well as on the local environment.