SDG7 - Ensure Access to Affordable, Reliable, Sustainable, and Modern Energy

Godwell Nhamo, Charles Nhemachena, Senia Nhamo, Vuyo Mjimba, Ivana Savić

• Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781789738025
• eBook ISBN: 9781789738018
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Energy

SDG7 aims to 'ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.' Meeting the demands of the 2030 agenda will be a unique challenge. National priorities and policy action need to be strengthened in order to fulfil the ambitious energy targets which SDG7 envisions. This book examines SDG7 and its implications for how energy operates as a driver of change for jobs, security, climate change, food production and increasing incomes. It provides a succinct overview of how SDG7 visualizes a world in which energy is universally accessible, increasingly efficient and renewable in order to create sustainable, inclusive and resilient communities. The key challenges such as public and private investment, regulatory frameworks and evolving business models are also considered so that a path forward towards the achievement of the goal and the transformation of global energy systems might become clear. Concise Guides to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals comprises 17 short books, each examining one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The series provides an integrated assessment of the SDGs from economic, legal, social, environmental and cultural perspectives.

1

ENERGY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE 2030 AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

1.1. INTRODUCTION

In 2015, the United Nations set in motion the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (AfSD), an ambitious global agenda (United Nations, 2015), thus establishing a transitional platform that will allow the world to move from the unfinished business of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the new and expanded AfSD. The 2030 AfSD outlines 17 intertwined Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets that countries should domesticate and localise, depending on their national and sub-national conditions. Among these SDGs is SDG 7 that focusses on ensuring ‘access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all’ (United Nations, 2015, p. 14). A number of questions arise here. What was the 2015 status quo in terms of SDG 7 in the various countries and their individual regions? What is the nature of national and regional initiatives (policies and legislation) seeking to advance SDG 7? What has been the impact of these initiatives? What are the chances that these countries and regions will be able to achieve the SDGs by December 2030? What lessons can be drawn from the countries at the forefront? The list of related questions is very long.

Pradhan, Costa, Rybski, Lucht, and Kropp (2017) contend that the 2030 AfSD is a comprehensive and extensive road map presenting targets and indicators that align all countries to pathways leading to sustainable development. To this end, a common belief is that of SDGs as a plausible vehicle to address some of the multiple complex challenges facing humankind today and into the future. Although SDG 7 comes across as having the fewest identified targets – six in total – its central role in the attainment of the entire 2030 AfSD cannot be overemphasised (McCollum et al., 2018). In attempting to understand how SDG 7 relates to other SDGs, the authors performed a large-scale literature evaluation, which confirmed that the positive interactions between the SDGs outweigh the negative ones, both in terms of number and magnitude.

Based on the 2017 data, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) found that ‘the world is making progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 7 … but will fall short of meeting the targets by 2030 at the current rate’ (IEA, IRENA, UNSD, World Bank, & WHO, 2019, p. 1). India, Bangladesh and Kenya have made particularly good progress on universal access to electricity, leading to a reduction in the global population without access to electricity to 840 million in 2017, compared to 1.2 billion in 2010. In order to carry this work further, there is a need to prioritise programmes and projects that focus on the scaling up of SDG 7 implementation. To this end, the need to prioritise SDG 7 should be unequivocal. For example, even the oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) makes it clear that ‘renewable energy, coupled with energy efficiency and electrification of the end users is the area of focus for the policy makers in the country’ (World Energy Council (WEC), 2019, p. 6). In fact, managing global energy transition pathways and energy security remains everybody’s business and one of the most pressing needs of our time. Given the foregoing, there are three global proclamations of interest with which this book is concerned, namely: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); the Paris Agreement (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 2015); and the 2030 AfSD, specifically SDGs 7 (universal energy access) and SDG 13 (climate action) (United Nations, 2015). As noted by the WEC (2019), global greenhouse gas (GHG) – carbon emissions continue to rise and the world needs to be constrained to the 2 °C scenario (Nam-Cho & Kimb, 2019). However, what is of interest is that, while world leaders continue to discuss and implement energy transition, the movement away from dirty, fossil-powered energy generation systems is likely to be abrupt. This is so because the world has been witnessing multiple tipping points in favour of a clean, low carbon future (Nhamo, 2015).

As global leaders continue to debate matters pertaining to sustainable energy, Africa remains the theatre for improvement. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2017a) maintains that all its countries met the target of universal access to energy. However, at the time of this report, many countries were still lagging behind in terms of meeting the targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The story is different for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), where energy access remains very low and where electricity coverage was estimated at 35% overall and about 19% in the rural areas (WEC, 2019). To move more quickly towards closing the energy gap in SSA, the sub-continent should focus on project management and address inefficiencies in the electricity sector. Major issues in the industry include power generation deficits, inefficient distribution, high tariffs, connection fees and huge backlogs in investment. While there has been some progress in bringing solar and wind power on board, SSA remains limited by technology patents, most of which do not come cheap. Nevertheless, there is notable work being undertaken seeking to address these and other challenges. Some selected facts on SDG 7, from a 2018 United Nations report, are presented in Box 1.1.

Box 1.1. Selected Facts on SDG 7.

• From 2000 to 2016, the proportion of the global population with access to electricity increased from 78% to 87%, with the absolute number of people living without electricity dipping to just below 1 billion.
• In the least developed countries, the proportion of people with access to electricity more than doubled between 2000 and 2016.
• In 2016, 3 billion people (41% of the world’s population) were still cooking with polluting fuel and stove combinations.
• The share of renewables in final energy consumption increased modestly, from 17.3% in 2014 to 17.5% in 2015. Yet only 55% of the renewable share was derived from modern forms of renewable energy.
• Global energy intensity decreased by 2.8% from 2014 to 2015, double the rate of improvement seen between 1990 and 2010.

Source: Adapted from United Nations (2018, p. 7)

Addressing these challenges is not going to be cheap. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP, 2019) notes that there is a need for total investments of about $1–1.27 trillion annually to achieve the stated objectives. These figures were supplied by a cluster of organisations that include the World Bank, IEA and IRENA. From the total estimated cost, universal access to electricity alone will demand $52 billion, clean fuel about $4.4 billion, renewable energy an estimated $442–$650 billion and energy efficiency about $560 billion annually. In addition, on average, the realised financing for SDG 7 stood at about $514 billion per year, leaving a funding gap of $500–$750 billion annually. The Asia-Pacific region alone is estimated to need over $500 billion by 2030 (UNESCAP, 2019). The good news is that investments in renewable energy capacity reached $272.9 billion in 2018 (Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, 2019).

In light of the above background, this book presents some insights regarding how the world has been responding to the global call for universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy (United Nations, 2015). It adds to the growing literature on the 2030 AfSD in general, and on SDG 7 in particular. The rest of the chapters will focus on the central role of energy in the attainment of the 2030 AfSD; access to affordable, reliable and modern energy; increased share of renewable energy in the mix; discourses surrounding energy efficiency; the methodological orientation for the book; and the book outline. These perspectives will be addressed further in each of the regional chapters featured in the book, as well as in the concluding chapter.

1.2. CENTRAL ROLE OF ENERGY IN ACHIEVING THE 2030 AGENDA

There is no contestation regarding the fact that the SDGs are linked, thereby fulfilling the long determined concept of ‘all for one and one in all’ (Ntona & Morgera, 2018; Tosun & Leininger, 2017; Vladimirova & Le Blanc, 2015). One of the objectives of the 2030 AfSD is to attain policy coherence, leading to sustained development. This intention demands that the 17 individual SDGs speak to each other and become interconnected (Tosun & Leininger, 2017). To this end, stronger ties have been identified between SDGs dealing with food, water and energy security. Trade-offs were also realised for SDG 7, especially when dirty energy is used to power economies, leading to increased carbon emissions which, in turn, result in global warming and climate change (Pradhan et al., 2017).

Depending on one’s context, there is a likelihood that ensuring ‘access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all’ (United Nations, 2015, p. 14) as stipulated in SDG 7 can be deemed the greatest SDG of all. Sachs et al. (2018) support this understanding through their conceptualised six transformations to achieve the SDGs. The role played by SDG 7 is directly expressed in four of the six transformations, namely: education, gender and inequality; energy decarbonisation and sustainable industry; sustainable cities and communities; and digital revolution for sustainable development. The other two transformations, in which SDG 7 is not expressly mentioned, are: sustainable food, land, water and oceans; and health, well-being and demography. The six transformations are featured in the Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Sustainable Development Report of 2019 (Sachs, Schmidt-Traub, Kroll, Lafortune, & Fuller, 2019).

As indicated earlier, SDG 7 remains the greatest of the goals. Poverty (SDG 1) is difficult, if not impossible to end without a secure, adequate and reliable supply of energy. In addition, the agriculture sector that leads to ending hunger and malnutrition (SDG 2), in turn leading to healthy lives (SDG 3), depends on access to energy too. Energy is required to power health as well as water and sanitation facilities. Not only is energy required to sustain good health, but clean energy sources are also critical in fighting diseases associated with indoor air pollution (Kimemia & Annegarn, 2016). In addition, there is no quality education (SDG 4) without access to electricity and other forms of energy. Furthermore, gender issues – SDG 5 (Nhamo, Nhamo, & Nhemachena, 2018) matter in sustainable and modern energy. Women are becoming active participants in energy entrepreneurship across the world. The water–energy–food nexus (SDG 6 and SDG 2) is one of the focus areas in this century.

Without sustainable energy and energy security, the world will not be able to create sustainable jobs (SDG 8) and develop the necessary developmental infrastructure linked to SDG 9 (United Nations, 2015). The construction industry is one of the key energy consuming sectors. To add to the equation, areas and communities affected by limited access to energy are characterised by inequalities (SDG 10). The dream of having sustainable and smart cities (SDG 11) is growing globally (Ramaphosa, 2019). In that regard, sustainable energy remains at the centre of driving activities and growth in such cities. Settlements and city ecosystems rely he...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1. Energy in the Context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
• 2. Measuring Progress Towards SDG 7 Targets in East Asia and the Pacific
• 3. Placing Emphasis on Renewables, Efficiency and Energy Diplomacy in Europe and Central Asia
• 4. North America’s Energy Progress in Controversial and Contested Circumstances
• 5. Progress and Challenges in Attaining SDG 7 in Latin America and the Caribbean Region
• 6. Projecting Progress and Challenges to Accelerating the Achievement of SDG 7 in South Asia
• 7. Imminent Changes in Mena Region Energy Dynamics
• 8. Energy Poverty in the Midst of Plenty: A Harsh Reality for Sub-Saharan Africa
• 9. Concluding the Matter: Global Energy Gaps and Remedial Pathways to 2030
• Index