Much of Africa still lacks electricity. The carbon ethics are thorny.

Aby Ndour starts most days the same way: She wakes up, gets dressed, and treks through bean and millet fields to collect firewood from the trees and shrubs scattered across the sandy countryside that surrounds her village. 

Inside the small hut in her family compound where she cooks is a wood-fired stove, which is hot and smoky. At night, fires are the main source of light in Kourty; the nearest town with reliable electricity to charge a phone is four miles away. 

As a result, life tends to grind to a halt when the sun goes down. Even within the village – and especially along the narrow, swerving roads to other settlements – darkness breeds wariness. “Nobody goes anywhere” after sundown, Ms. Ndour says. “We stop. It’s not safe.”

Ms. Ndour’s situation isn’t unusual. According to World Bank figures, 30% of Senegal’s population lacks access to electricity – a proportion that rises to more than 50% in its rural hinterland. Of the estimated 770 million people worldwide living without electricity, three-quarters are in Sub-Saharan