Access to primary energy continues to falter, despite the opportunities offered by renewables. Many live without electricity or clean cooking, and face challenges in areas such as education, health care and economic opportunity.
A report published Tuesday by several organizations, including the World Health Organization and the World Bank, said that 675 million people live without electricity in the world, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to this report, the world will not be able to achieve the sustainable development goal adopted by the member states of the United Nations in 2015 to ensure clean and affordable energy for all by 2030.
World Bank Vice President Guangzi Chen said in a statement that the world is facing a “slowdown in the global pace of securing electricity.”
Although the number of people living without electricity has nearly halved over the past decade, 675 million people will still be without electricity in 2021. About 80% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, where deprivation of electricity remains similar to what it used to be. status on it in 2010.
“While the transition to clean energy is progressing faster than many believe, much work remains to be done to provide sustainable, safe and affordable access to modern energy services to the billions of people who are deprived of it,” said Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, in a joint statement.
The joint report was issued today by the International Energy Agency, the International Renewable Energy Agency, the United Nations Statistics Division, and the World Bank, and the World Health Organization chaired its issuance. It is the report that decision-makers will discuss on July 11 at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
Progress has been made on some points, such as increasing the rate of use of renewable energies in the electricity sector, but this is not sufficient to achieve the goals of the United Nations.
Based on data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the report shows that international public financial flows for clean energy in low- and middle-income countries have declined since the run-up to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the report, the accumulated debts, as well as the high energy prices, impede the goal of achieving clean cooking and electricity for all.
According to current projections, 1.9 billion people will be without access to clean cooking methods and 660 million from electricity in 2030 without new measures.
According to the World Health Organization, 3.2 million people die each year from diseases caused by the use of polluting fuels and technologies.
