Growth in global electricity access slowed in the past three years compared to previous years, according to a recent report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
Although access to electricity increased to 91% in 2021 from 84% in 2010, the 114 million annual increase in 2019-2021 in the number of people with access was lower than the observed annual increase of 129 million between 2010 and 2019, according to the report. . Overall, access grew by 0.7 percentage points per year between 2010 and 2019, and decreased to 0.6 percentage points per year between 2019 and 2021.
The trend shows that the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7) for energy set by the United Nations (UN), according to the report. While there has been some progress on specific elements of the SDG7 agenda, such as increasing the rate of use of renewable energy in the electricity sector, the report says “progress is insufficient” to achieve the goals by the target date of 2030, with the mark of 2023. the midpoint for implementation.
“Rising commodity, energy and shipping prices have increased the cost of producing and transporting solar PV modules, wind turbines and biofuels around the world,” according to the UN website which describes the ‘status of the goals of ODS7. The UN said meeting the targets would require “continued political support and massive mobilization of public and private capital for clean and renewable energy, especially in developing countries”.
Although the use of renewable electricity in global consumption saw the largest single-year increase since progress was tracked, from 26.3% in 2019 to 28.2% in 2020, s ‘have had to “step up” efforts to substantially increase their share of total energy. mixture, the IEA said. Growth in renewable energy use is unevenly distributed and “more action is needed in less developed countries,” the agency said. The share of renewable energy should reach 33 to 38 percent by 2030 and account for 60 to 65 percent of electricity generation, the IEA recommended.
Another issue highlighted in the report was the decline in international public financial flows to support clean energy in developing countries. Funding had started to fall even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with financial resources more than a third lower from 2020 than the average of the previous decade, the IEA said. In 2021, these flows totaled $10.8 billion, down 11% from 2020 and 35% below the 2010-19 average. As financial flows have contracted for a third consecutive year, they have become increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries, the agency said. Multilateral financial institutions should “direct financial flows more equitably around the world to support the deployment of renewable energy and the development of related physical infrastructure,” said the director-general of the International Energy Agency Renewables, Francesco La Camera, in the report.
“While the transition to clean energy is moving faster than many think, much work is still needed to provide sustainable, secure and affordable access to modern energy services for the billions of people living without her. Successful energy transitions depend on effective policies and technological innovation combined with the large-scale mobilization of investment capital. The international community must take advantage of all these tools to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by the end of this decade.” , said Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA.
Millions without access
The IEA report showed that 675 million people still lacked access to electricity in 2021, with 567 million living in sub-Saharan Africa, representing more than 80 percent of the world’s population without access. The COVID-19 pandemic and the associated energy crisis have left an estimated 75 million people without the ability to pay for an extended package of electricity services, according to the report.
To achieve universal access by 2030, the annual growth rate of electricity access will need to be one percentage point per year from 2021. The acceleration should be concentrated in Africa sub-Saharan Africa, with progress of more than five percentage points per year on average over the next nine years, the report recommends.
Meanwhile, the goal of achieving universal access to clean cooking by 2030 remains off track, the report found, with up to 2.3 billion people still using polluting fuels and technologies for cooking, largely in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. With the continued impact of COVID-19 and rising energy prices, the IEA estimates that 100 million people who have recently transitioned to clean cooking may return to using traditional biomass and “the Polluting cooking fuels and technologies will continue to claim millions of lives each year.” unless “efforts are rapidly stepped up today,” the agency said.
The report was written by the IEA, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the United Nations Statistics Division, the World Bank and the World Health Organization.
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