UN pushes for energy efficiency, access

The United Nations urged countries to ensure universal access to modern energy services and reduce global energy intensity by 40 percent by 2030 in a report released on Wednesday.

“The decisions we make today on energy will have a profound impact on the global climate, on sustainable development, on economic growth and global security,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon told reporters during the launch of a report authored by his Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change.

“We need a clean energy revolution in developing countries, where demand is rising rapidly, and in the developed world, in order to cute greenhouse emissions,” he said.

Ensuring universal access to modern energy and delivering a reduction in energy intensity are two goals that work in tandem with each other, said Ban.

The report reasoned that increased energy efficacy allows existing and new infrastructure to reach more people by freeing up capital resources to invest in enhanced access to modern energy services.

The International Energy Agency estimates that expanding access to electricity worldwide would result in a 1.3 percent increase in greenhouse gas emissions. However, these emissions could be further reduced though greater energy efficiency and the use of renewable or clear sources of energy.

Some 1.6 billion people lack access to electricity. A reliable, affordable energy supply is the key to economic growth and the achievement of anti-poverty targets in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), said the report.

Those without access to electricity are “among the poorest of the poor,” Kandeh K. Yumkella, chair of both the Advisory Group and the inter-agency coordinating body, UN Energy, and the director of the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), told reporters. “There is a strong correlation.”

The report urges nations to develop aggressive national targets for universal access, and put in place plans and the enabling environments to deliver them.

Meanwhile, the international community needs to harmonize technical standards for key energy-consuming products and equipment, to accelerate the transfer of know-how and good practices, and to catalyze increased private capital flows into investments in energy efficiency.

Adoption of the reports measures would translate into the reduction of global energy intensity by about 2.5 percent per year — approximately doublet the historic rate, said the report, which noted that energy efficiency is two-thirds more cost effective than the lowest costs in greenhouse gas abatement opportunities.

Roughly 60 percent of greenhouse gases, believed to contribute to climate change, comes from energy production, delivery and use, said the report.

“Access to energy needs to be expanded in the cleanest, most efficient way possible,” Ban said. “We need to scale-up renewable energy and other green technologies. These are ambitious goals, but I think they’re achievable. And they are necessary.”

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