The international impacts from a lack of sufficient power are often missed when debate swirls about the price of oil and gas, and the need to control emissions as part of an effort to change climate dynamics. There is a site, Energy Shortage, which provides information on the different parts of the world where energy shortages are occurring, both as short-term events, such as the power outage in Belize over the weekend a week ago, (though with more forecast) and the longer term problems that I have discussed before with power shortages between demand and supply. This impacts countries such as India which currently has a gap of between 15,000 and 20,000 MW between what is needed and what is available. Pakistan is currently seeing both problems, a short-term (though now over 48-hours) blackout in Karachi, because of torrential downpours due to the monsoon, and a longer term national shortage of more than 3,000 MW.

Part of the problem in this part of the world is that it relies on the rains of the monsoon season to provide hydroelectric power.