High inflation, debt distress, policy inactions and lagging financial flows slowing access to electricity, clean cooking in developing economies
Factors like high inflation, uncertain macroeconomic outlook and debt distress are keeping the world off-track for attaining United Nations-mandated Sustainable Development Goal 7 by 2030, according to a new UN report. SDG 7 is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.”
Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2023 was released June 6, 2023. The five SDG 7 custodian agencies, International Energy Agency (IEA), International Renewable Energy Agency, United Nations Statistics Division, World Bank and the WHO, collaborated to release the document.
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Several major economic factors are impeding the realisation of SDG 7 globally, like uncertain macroeconomic outlook, high levels of inflation, currency fluctuations, debt distress in many countries, lack of financing, supply chain bottlenecks, tighter fiscal circumstances and soaring prices for materials, the report added.
Certain policy responses to the global energy crisis appear likely to improve the outlook for renewables and energy efficiency, the report said. However, other necessary policy actions, as well as financial flows, continue to lag.
This particularly concerns lacking universal access to electricity and clean cooking in developing economies, with projections indicating that SDG 7 will not be reached by 2030, the paper said.
The uptake of renewable energy (target 7.2) has grown since 2010, but efforts must be scaled up substantially, the UN bodies found.
The rate of improvement in energy efficiency (target 7.3) is not on track to double by 2030, with the current trend of 1.8 per cent falling short of the targeted increase of 2.6 per cent each year between 2010-2030, the report said.
Progress on target 7.a — to increase international public financial flows supporting clean energy in developing countries — began to decline even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the paper pointed out. Financial resources were more than a third lower since 2020 than the average of the previous decade (2010–19).
As financial flows have contracted for the third year in a row, they have become increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries, the UN bodies further said.
The decreasing trend in international public financial flows may delay the achievement of SDG 7, especially for the least-developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries, and small island developing states.
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Globally, access to electricity grew by an annual average of 0.7 percentage points between 2010 and 2021, rising from 84 per cent of the world’s population to 91 per cent, the report said.
The number of people without electricity almost halved during the period, from 1.1 billion in 2010 to 675 million in 2021. The pace of annual growth slowed during 2019–21 to 0.6 percentage points.
The global population lacking access to clean cooking fell from 2.9 billion in 2010 to 2.3 billion in 2021, but the goal of universal access by 2030 remains elusive.
Some 1.9 billion people would still be without access to clean cooking in 2030, the report said. If current trends continue, almost six out of ten people without access to clean cooking in 2030 would reside in Sub-Saharan Africa.
With the ongoing impact of COVID-19 and soaring energy prices, the IEA estimates show 100 million people who recently transitioned to clean cooking may revert to using traditional biomass, the report added.
SDG target 7.3 calls for doubling the global rate of improvement in energy intensity over the average rate during 1990–2010 — which means improving energy intensity by 2.6 per cent per year between 2010 and 2030.
However, progress between 2010 and 2020 averaged only 1.8 per cent, the paper showed. To make up for lost ground, improvement in energy intensity must now exceed 3.4 per cent globally from 2020 to 2030—twice the rate achieved in the past decade.
In 2020, the share of renewable energy in total final energy consumption stood at just 19.1 per cent (or 12.5 per cent if traditional use of biomass is excluded), not much more than the 16 per cent a decade earlier. Enhancing renewables-based electricity supply in developing countries deserves particular attention, it further said.
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While there is no quantitative target for this indicator, IEA and IRENA scenarios estimated staying in line with international climate and energy goals required annual investments in renewable electricity generation and related infrastructure of USD 1.4-1.7 trillion through 2030.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, also called the 2030 Agenda, was launched by a UN Summit in 2015 and is aimed at ending poverty in all its forms. There are 17 SDGs, which are an urgent call for action by all countries in a global partnership. 2023 marks the halfway point for achieving SDGs by 2030.
SDG 7 includes reaching universal access to electricity and clean cooking, doubling historic levels of efficiency improvements, and substantially increasing the share of renewables in the global energy mix.
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The global population lacking access to clean cooking fell from 2.9 billion in 2010 to 2.3 billion in 2021, but the goal of universal access by 2030 remains elusive. Photo: iStock.png)
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