Context:
Recently, IRENA, with other organizations, jointly published ‘Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2024’.
About the report:
This report was led by IEA this year and published by the combined effort of the following 5 custodian agencies:
- the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
- the International Energy Agency (IEA),
- the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD),
- the World Bank (WB) and
- the World Health Organization (WHO).
This yearly report tracks worldwide efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7, which aims to provide everyone with affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy.
Key Findings of the report:
- Despite improvements in energy access, efficiency, and renewable energy adoption, the current pace falls short to achieve SDG 7 goal by 2030.
- In 2022, 91% of the global population had electricity access, yet 685 million people still lacked it.
- Additionally, 74% had access to clean cooking technologies, but 2.1 billion still used polluting fuels, largely in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
Household air pollution created by using polluting fuels and technologies for cooking results in 3.2 million premature deaths each year. - Renewable energy accounted for 18.7% of global energy consumption in 2021.
- In 2022, global per capita installed renewable energy capacity set a new record at 424 watts.
However, significant disparities persist: developed countries have 3.7 times more installed capacity per capita (1,073 watts) compared to developing countries (293 watts). - In 2022, the IEA estimated that 2.5 million households gained electricity access through solar-home and solar lighting systems. The World Bank reported that off-grid solar solutions served 490 million people.
- In 2021, renewable energy comprised 18.7% of total final energy consumption (TFEC). The share of modern renewables, i.e. excluding traditional uses of biomass, was 12.5%, only four percentage points higher than in 2010.
- To keep global climate targets within reach, the deployment of renewable energy must accelerate across the three key categories of electricity, heat, and transport.
- In 2022, international funding for clean energy in developing countries rose to USD 15.4 billion, a 25% increase from 2021.
However, the majority of this funding, 80%, went to only 25 countries, highlighting uneven distribution.
Key Recommendations in the report:
The agencies responsible for overseeing SDG 7 emphasise for: –
- The urgent need to ramp up efforts to expand energy access.
- Increasing the adoption of renewable energy.
- Improving energy efficiency, and
- Significantly boosting financial support to developing countries for clean energy initiatives.
These above actions are essential for meeting broader global goals such as:
- Tripling renewable energy capacity,
- Doubling energy efficiency by 2030, and
- Limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century.