"The missing MDG"

A Nobel prize winner says that energy development should have been included in the Millennium Development Goals. Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the United Nations climate panel, says that getting energy to the poor is holding back the fight against poverty.

Matthias Williams, who writes for Reuters received the remarks from Pachauri.

Pachauri, whose panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, said meeting the poor's energy needs should have been listed as a Millennium Development Goal (MDG) when the issue was debated at a key development summit more than six years ago.

"As a result of the insistence by some country governments, and in fact particularly just one country government, the whole sector of energy was dropped from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," Pachauri said at a seminar in New Delhi.

"Today energy remains the missing MDG."

Energy was discussed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, Pachauri said, though he did not elaborate on which countries blocked its inclusion.

"Without the provision of adequate and appropriate supply of energy ... we would be falling far short of what is desired and what we need to achieve in eliminating poverty across rural areas across the world," Pachauri said.

There are 1.6 billion people without electricity in the world, which impacts their health, education and ability to work, Pachauri said.

I bet you that the one country is the U.S...