Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7 or Global Goal 7) is one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. It aims to “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” Access to energy is an important pillar for the wellbeing of the people as well as for economic development and poverty alleviation.
The goal has five targets to be achieved by 2030. Progress towards the targets is measured by six indicators. Three out of the five targets are outcome targets: Universal access to modern energy; increase global percentage of renewable energy; double the improvement in energy efficiency. The remaining two targets are means of implementation targets: to promote access to research, technology and investments in clean energy; and expand and upgrade energy services for developing countries. In other words, these targets include access to affordable and reliable energy while increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. They also focus on improving energy efficiency, international cooperation and investment in clean energy infrastructure and equal rights to energy distribution.
According to a review report in 2019, some progress towards achieving SDG 7 is being made, but many of the targets of SDG 7 will not be met. SDG 7 and SDG 13 (climate action) are closely related.
Problem description
SDG 7 is tackling the problem of the high number of people globally who live without access to electricity or clean cooking solutions (0.8 billion and 2.4 billion people, respectively, in 2020). Energy is needed for many activities, for example jobs and transport, food security, health and education.
People that are hard to reach with electricity and clean cooking solutions include those who live in remote areas or are internally displaced people, or those who live in urban slums or marginalized communities. As well as addressing a range of inequalities in the distribution of resources.
| Targets | Indicator(s) |
|---|---|
| 7.1 By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services | 7.1.1 Proportion of population with access to electricity 7.1.2 Proportion of population with primary reliance on clean fuels and technology |
| 7.2 By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix | 7.2.1 Renewable energy share in the total final energy consumption |
| 7.3 By 2030, double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency | 7.3.1 Energy intensity measured in terms of primary energy and GDP |
| 7.a By 2030, enhance international cooperation to facilitate access to clean energy research and technology, including renewable energy, energy efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel technology, and promote investment in energy infrastructure and clean energy technology | 7.a.1 International financial flows to developing countries in support of clean energy research and development and renewable energy production, including in hybrid systems |
| 7.b By 2030, expand infrastructure and upgrade technology for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all in developing countries, in particular least developed countries, small island developing States and landlocked developing countries, in accordance with their respective programmes of support | 7.b.1 Installed renewable energy-generating capacity in developing countries (in watts per capita) |
Custodian agencies
Custodian agencies are in charge of reporting on the following indicators:
- Indicators 7.1.1 and 7.1.2: World Bank (WB) and World Health Organization (WHO).
- Indicator 7.2.1: Department of Economic and Social Affairs-Statistics Division (DESA/UNDP), International Energy Agency (IEA) and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
- Indicator 7.3.1 are Department of Economic and Social Affairs-Statistics Division (DESA/UNDP) and International Energy Agency (IEA).
- Indicator 7.a.1: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
- Indicator 7.b.1: International Energy Agency (IEA).
Links with other SDGs
The SDGs are all interlinked. Energy (or SDG 7) is key to most global issues: this includes poverty eradication (SDG 1), gender equality (SDG 5), climate action (SDG 13), food security (SDG 2), health (SDG 3), education (SDG 4), sustainable cities (SDG 11), jobs (SDG 8) and transport (SDG 9). SDG 7 and SDG 13 (climate action) are closely related.
Access to energy is directly related to human development. This is particularly true for women, who spend more of their time collecting fuel and water, and preparing meals. Access to energy would allow them to spend more time on education and work. Women need to be given equal pay, equal treatment and equal status.
According to UN Women, energy interventions that take into perspective women’s needs have a significant impact on addressing gender equality and community energy poverty while also ensuring the equal participation of women in energy intervention that in turn benefits the society at large.
Organizations
There are five custodian agencies for SDG 7 which together published the 2020 Energy Progress Report:
- International Energy Agency (IEA)
- International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)
- United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD)
- World Bank (WB)
- World Health Organization (WHO)
Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) is an international organization working in partnership with the United Nations, leaders in government, the private sector, financial institutions and civil society with as goal to drive further, faster action toward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7, which calls for universal access to sustainable energy by 2030, and the Paris Agreement, which calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit climate warming to below 2 °C.
Launched by former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2011, SEforALL is now an independent organization based in Vienna, Austria with a satellite office in Washington, DC.
Damilola Ogunbiyi took office in January 2020 as CEO and as Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All as well as Co-Chair of UN-Energy. She is the former Managing Director of Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency.
Significance of SDG 7 and key energy issues and impacts
The UN SDGs are the goals and actions that respond to myriads of global problems and pressing challenges to be solved by the world community by 2030. Among these 17 goals, SDG 7 corresponds to energy. It aims to “Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” (UN 2015). Transitioning the global economy towards clean and sustainable energy is a big challenge. Further, SDG 7 has complicated interactions with other SDGs leading to synergies and trade-offs which may hinder its achievement. For example, Pradhan et al. (2017) finds high global synergy among SDG 7 and good health and wellbeing – SDG 3. Similarly, van Soest et al. (2019) using their Integrated Assessment Model found highest interaction of SDG 7 with climate action – SDG 13, followed by work and economic growth – SDG 8, clean water – SDG 6 and zero hunger -SDG 2.
Growing world population with increased use of fossil fuels has led to severe energy crisis and rise to critical issues pertaining to increased pollution, climate change, energy access, affordability and reliability. There is clear scientific evidence that earth’s climate is changing and there is rise in GHG emissions and the global mean temperature. Carbon dioxide (CO2) primarily constitutes two third of these GHG emissions. The sources of these emissions are primarily derived by human activities which are largely the result of fossil fuel burning. The climate change has also resulted in loss of ice-cover, rainfall variability impacting health, crops, and cities; increase in frequency of droughts, floods, heat waves resulting in malnutrition, hunger, loss of lives, displaced refugee population among many others. These impacts are even severe among the poor, developing and small island nations, and worst affected are women and children. Women and children also lose lot of time in fuelwood and biomass collection which could otherwise have been spent in employment generation or educational purposes.
The poor population majorly relies on the traditional biomass because of easy availability and cost factors. This has severe impacts on the global supply chain and the environment. Firstly, being low efficiency sources (e.g. wood, leaves, dung cakes etc.) there is large deforestation because of local demand . Second, inefficient cooking practices lead to indoor air pollution which result in different health conditions (e.g. stroke, is chaemic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – COPD and lung cancer) and in extreme cases even result in premature deaths. According to a recent estimate by World Health Organization, nearly 2.6 billion people cook using polluting open sources of fire or stoves using kerosene, wood, animal dung, coal and their inefficient cooking practices has resulted in 4 million pre-mature deaths (WHO 2021). Further, half of the pneumonia deaths among children less than five years of age was caused by soot inhaled from the household indoor air pollution. This clearly indicates that there is an urgent need to create awareness and educate people about cleaner sources of fuel such as LPQ renewable and energy efficient cooking devices (e.g. solar cookers) and biogas digestors.
Energy access is critical to wellbeing of people, poverty alleviation and economic development (Ritchie and Mispy, 2018). According to IEA, in 2019 there were billion people without access to clean cooking and relying on wooden biomass, kerosene and coal as primary fuel. According to UN, “Sustainable energy is an opportunity – it transforms lives, economies, and the planet… central to nearly every major challenge and opportunity the world faces today. Be it for jobs, security, climate change, food production or increasing incomes, access to energy for all is essential” (UN 2015).
According to GEA (2012), there is a bi-directional relationship between the lack of access to adequate and affordable energy services and the poverty levels. For example, these two factors are important contributors of poverty in developing countries, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. “People who lack access to cleaner and affordable energy are often trapped in a re-enforcing cycle of deprivation, lower incomes and the means to improve their living conditions while at the same time using significant amounts of their very limited income on expensive and unhealthy forms of energy that provide poor and/or unsafe services” (GEA 2012).This problem is not just limited to the developing world. In 2015, one third of the US household struggle to pay their utility bills (ACEEE 2015). Among these, one-fifth of the households had to lower their food and health expenses to pay their energy bills. Such evidence calls for cost effective and new energy infrastructures and models (solar lights, Photovoltaic – PV home systems, clean cook stoves, bio-digestors) with attractive financing and loan schemes that provides smooth energy transition to all the communities and poor section of the society.
Energy reliability is another critical concern globally. Countries like France and South Korea have one of the world’s most stable electricity systems1 whichhas not seen electricity outage in almost a decade. On the other hand, there are nearly 3.5 billion people comprising 45% of the world population who lack access to reliable electricity services and regularly face challenge in their day to day life (Ayaburi et al. 2020) because of poor energy infrastructure, limited production capacity, transmission and evacuation issues, underfunding, debt ridden government utilities among others. Developing countries continue to suffer from electricity system reliability. For example, only 45% of the Nigerian economy is electrified and power outage once a month is common (refer to footnote 1). Energy reliability calls for properly maintained energy infrastructure, adequate government support, proper balance between demand and supply supported with an accurate forecasting and real time monitoring system.
FOR MORE DETAIL DISCUSSION ON SDG 7 – AFFORDABLE AND CLEAN ENERGY, LISTEN TO THE PODCAST EPISODE ON ‘RESEARCH WITH NJ’.
Naman Jain 