poverty

Chinese Poverty
Nationally, there were 40.07 million Chinese living under state poverty level, which was raised to 1,196 yuan (178 U.S. dollars) per person per year in 2009. Nearly 36 million rural residents, or 3.8 percent of China's rural population, lived under the poverty line.

Energy Poverty
The city of New York, for instance, with 8 million habitants today uses the same amount of electricity as that of the Sub-Saharan Africa which has a population of about 800 million. This means that electricity consumption per capita in NYC is more than 6,000 Kwh/person while it is only 63 kwh/person in Sub Saharan Africa - a ratio approaching 1:100.
The Indian population, representing almost 17 percent of the world population, consumes only 4 percent of the planet’s energy. In 2005, 20 percent of the population still had no access to electricity.
20 percent of the global population — 1.4 billion people — lack access to electricity. Some 40 percent of the global population — 2.7 billion people — rely today on the traditional use of biomass for cooking. Some 1.2 billion people, equivalent to China’s population, would still have no electricity by 2030 if governments made no change to existing policies
André Caillé, World Energy Council's former chairman, said "If 30 percent of the world population is to achieve North American living standards, the energy supply must be tripled.”
Pierre Gadonneix, the president of the World Energy Council , conceded during an informal chat in Montreal recently. that this divide is now one of the major concerns that the energy world is faced with today and could trigger upheavals in many societies too with serious implications.

Water Poverty
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned today that hundreds of millions worldwide still live with an absence of clean water, perpetuating poverty. Water, he stressed,"is not only a basic necessity, it is a human right."
Nearly 900 million peopole still do not have access to clean water. 2.6 billion people not having access to basic sanitation services such as toilets and basic sanitation. If the current trend continues, the number is expected to climb to 2.7 billion by 2015. "Living in these conditions increases the likelihood of disease and death" Ban explained