Friso Sikkema

“Imagine that the refrigerator turns off during the night. Imagine that the light fixture doesn’t work when they need it most. This is completely unacceptable.

“So here’s the thing – the power that cools their food is almost certainly coal derived, and this is because only fully developed grids can accommodate solar power. If you try to do solar as a stand-alone option, at night there simply is no power. Batteries to store some power are ridiculously expensive, and last only a few years.

Coal is cheap, plentiful and as a result, coal fired power plants are being built at a huge pace (hundreds of them), and rightfully so. It is immoral to deny developing countries the same (actually, just a fraction) of energy use that the developed world does.”