Dear Mankind and most favoured of my children
You will recall my earliest blogs ( mother Earth blogs ) welcomed the Global initiative to develop the Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) to help create a safer and fairer world and I was happy that mankind had at last understood the need to live more sustainably and harmoniously with other living things on this, our only, home. Some good progress was starting to be being made in some areas but sadly most of this encouraging activity was brought to an abrupt halt or in some cases , even reversed by the COVID 19 Pandemic
This blog on SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy is the next in a series of updates to review the effects of the COVID 19 pandemic on the aspirations and targets of each of the original 17 SDGS and to look ahead to the prospects in each sector
The Pandemic has had an unprecedented economic and human toll on Human societies around the world . Progress was being made during last Decade in providing access to electricity. Globally access improved from 83% in 2010 to 90% in 2019 resulting in 1.1billion people receiving electricity for the first time . However even then ,759 million were still without access by 2019 and over 1/3rd of global population still lacked access to clean cooking fuels and technologies
The Pandemic has reversed the progress made and millions have now lost access to electricity. In most of Africa and Asia basic electrical services have become unaffordable and more than 25 million people who previously had access have now lost it and another 80 million are having to scale back use of electricity because of rising costs . In 2010 only 57% of global population was using clean fuels / technologies and this had increased to 66% by 2019 . However this still left 2.6 billion people without access to clean fuels many of whom live in sub–Saharan Africa where 85% of the population still rely on inefficient or dangerous cooking systems.
Concerted action and substantial investment is needed in this sector if Global targets are to be met especially in the least developed countries which are falling further and further behind . At present rate of progress there will still be 660 million without access to electricity by 2030
Mother Earth
Sources : The Sustainable Development Goals Reports 2019 -2021 , United nations, New York
