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Page added on May 18, 2015
World Progressing on Sustainable Energy Goals
The world is heading in the right direction to achieve universal access to sustainable energy by 2030 but must move faster, says a new report that tracks the progress of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative.
The report – “Progress Toward Sustainable Energy: Global Tracking Framework 2015” – finds that 1.1 billion people in the world still live without electricity and almost 3 billion still cook using polluting fuels like kerosene, wood, charcoal and dung. And, while picking up steam, renewable energy generation and energy efficiency improvements will need to accelerate dramatically, it says.
The report is the second in a series that tracks the world’s progress toward SE4All’s three goals of universal energy access, doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix – all to be met by 2030. While the first edition, released in 2013, measured progress between 1990 and 2010, this edition focuses on 2010 to 2012.
In that two-year period, the number of people without access to electricity declined from 1.2 billion to 1.1 billion, a rate of progress much faster than the 1990-2010 period. In total 222 million people gained access to electricity during this period, higher than the population increase of 138 million people. These gains were concentrated in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, and mainly in urban areas. The global electrification rate increased from 83 percent in 2010 to 85 percent in 2012.
But there was less progress on access to clean cooking fuel with 2.9 billion people still using biomass fuels like wood and dung – most of this population clustered in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and eastern Asia.
On the positive side, the share of modern renewable energy (from sources including hydro, solar and wind energy) grew rapidly at 4 percent a year during the tracking period. Modern renewables made up 8.8 percent of total global energy consumption in 2012. Still, to meet the 2030 SE4All objective, the annual growth rate for renewable energy needs to be closer to 7.5 percent.
The report uses energy intensity – global economic output divided by total energy consumption – as a measure of energy efficiency. During 2010-2012, energy intensity fell more than 1.7 percent a year, considerably more than the annual rate during 1990-2010, but still slower than the SE4All objective of an annual 2.6 percent drop in energy intensity between 2010 and 2030.
“We are heading in the right direction to end energy poverty,” said Anita Marangoly George, Senior Director of the World Bank’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice, “but we are still far from the finish line. We will need to work a lot harder especially to mobilize much larger investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency. Leveraging public finance to mobilize private capital is imperative in achieving these goals.”
To help close the gap, the report makes key recommendations for global policymakers and stakeholders, including:
- Tripling energy investments from the current level. Annual global investments in energy will need to scale up from roughly $400 billion at present to $1trillion-$1.25 trillion. Of that, between $40 billion and $100 billion annually is needed to achieve universal access to electricity. Universal access to modern cooking fuels, by contrast, requires just $4.3 billion a year.
- Adoption of modern methods of measuring energy access. Traditional measures of energy access, such as presence of a household electricity connection, mask vast differences in the quality of energy services. Many communities counted as having energy access actually receive very limited or unreliable power.
- Transfer of knowledge and technology for sustainable energy. Countries with lower capacity will need access to state-of-the-art clean energy technology and associated knowledge.
- Address the linkages between energy and other development sectors. Energy is closely linked to other sectors of key importance to global development, including water, agriculture, gender and health. Better understanding these linkages will be critical to achieving SE4All and other development goals. For example, using water more efficiently often cuts electricity consumption, as lower water demand reduces the need for pumping and treating water; water efficiency is also energy efficiency.
The Sustainable Energy for All Global Tracking Framework is produced jointly by the World Bank’s Energy and Extractives Global Practice, the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), and the International Energy Agency, and is supported by 20 other partner organizations and agencies.
The world needs to triple energy investments to about $1.25 trillion annually to achieve the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) goals by 2030. Watch the video to learn how countries are doing on energy access, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
11 Comments on "World Progressing on Sustainable Energy Goals"
Lawfish1964 on Mon, 18th May 2015 3:09 pm
Rah, rah! Blah, blah. Corny cheerleader garbage.
dave thompson on Mon, 18th May 2015 4:56 pm
More industrial BAU only means more of the same. The world bank only understands the language of more.
joe on Mon, 18th May 2015 6:35 pm
They want everyone one earth to have a light bulb wired up to their house and a radio switched on to hear the propaganda. Well that’s a very noble goal. It’s also very doable. It’s when that extra billion are hearing ads for cars and trucks on their new radios that we are going to have problems. If we can build a power plant without using an internal combustion engine in the process we will make it, otherwise we will struggle.
steve on Mon, 18th May 2015 7:07 pm
The cornies think that they can sell billions of products to the billions of low income people around the world and thus continue their growth….same song different verse.
apneaman on Mon, 18th May 2015 7:44 pm
There Is No “Green” Energy
http://candobetter.net/node/4077
John Kintree on Mon, 18th May 2015 9:04 pm
A small solar panel can charge the battery of an LED light and provide a household with light that costs less than a kerosene lamp, and also reduces indoor air pollution and the risk of fire.
At a systemic level, it would be good to apply the principle that is stated in the Earth Charter, “internalize the full environmental and social costs of goods and services in the selling price.”
I would like to see that on the ballot of a global referendum. The process of deliberating on and educating the public about the issue would be worthwhile in itself.
Perk Earl on Mon, 18th May 2015 10:46 pm
“A small solar panel can charge the battery of an LED light and provide a household with light that costs less than a kerosene lamp, and also reduces indoor air pollution and the risk of fire.”
And unless someone remains on the premises as security against break-ins it will probably get stolen. I knew someone that moved to Costa Rica and he had that problem. It’s so easy to think up ideas for the poor but the reality of their situation is quite different.
Westexasfanclub on Tue, 19th May 2015 3:57 am
“Modern renewables made up 8.8 percent of total global energy consumption in 2012.”
I don’t know how the author made up that number. If he refers to wind and solar, he’s totally wrong. Rouhgly 20% of the world’s energy use is electricity of which 5% is produced by renewables – which sums up to 1% of the total energy use.
If he counts wood for cooking and heating for example, that’s a whole different story. But by no means that energy source could be called “modern”.
Davy on Tue, 19th May 2015 5:22 am
John said “A small solar panel can charge the battery of an LED light and provide a household with light that costs less than a kerosene lamp, and also reduces indoor air pollution and the risk of fire.” John, I agree. This is not only true for the poor it is true for the rich. We need to all have a low cost and tech lighting systems for all homes. These small systems should have robust reliability and easy to use and maintain.
We are going to need this because the grid will destabilize and we are going to see brown outs, black outs, and triaged locations. The grid will not be able to be maintained at the level we see today in a collapse situation or process. A long emergency we will see the triage of locations without any power. Many rural areas will be this way. Many if not most of the areas that remain with power will suffer brown out and service periods. Look at Pakistani cities that get power 4 hours a day as an example. Light is so important for productivity at night.
We have lots of nighttime period in our day we need good stable light sources. We are facing a big reduction of our productivity if we go into a long emergency and start having brown outs or see rural areas with no power. Once this descent starts we are not going to have the resources or the manufacturing capacity to put small solar with batteries and LED in every house. You may scoff at this thinking but this is the kind of simple problems we are going to have. This is how basic our lives are going to descend to. Now is the time to do these things before it is too late. Since it won’t happen on a broad scale because of the BAUtopian mentality those of you who are thinking prep should think a small solar system for lighting and small appliances.
When I built my 12’X40’ cabin I put all the LED lighting in the cabin on one circuit so I can power them separately from the grid. I am using the grid and solar. There is no reason to go completely off the grid unless you are like G-man and have a passion for it. The grid is an asset utilize it while it is there. The grid works great for large draw items. Large complex AltE systems will suffer entropic decay like all other BAU systems. The large AltE systems are complex and expensive. Most people cannot afford to switch completely over. Besides there are so many ways to prep you are going to have to do budget trade-offs. The smaller and robust a system is the better for survivability in the long or short emergency. A small AltE Led system allows you to spend your prep budget on other things too.
Davy on Tue, 19th May 2015 5:33 am
West Tex, I have made the same point multiple times to the greenies. AltE is at such a small percentage of power production. We have no time or resources to power this up to replace what we have and go to a green AltE BAU. Greenies are delusional BAUtopians that feel good because they think their green fantasy is real. They think we can save the environment and have the comfort of kings. They want their cake and eat it. They want to think they can continue to defeat nature and preach they care about nature.
Greens are hypocrites and delusional. Yet, even so, they are doing the right thing. We need all the green activity and AltE build out we can muster. My point is their thinking is wrong and the false illusions of security are sending the wrong message to the sheeples. Greens should embrace reality and science and except entropy will win eventually one way or another. The time frame is debatable but the end result is not. The greens need to forget about this vast complex smart AltE grid that is supposed to be constructed all the while we are using the fossil fuel network and raping the earth of resources to do it. Why not acknowledge reality that we are going to collapse consumption and population in a necessary rebalance to get within our carrying capacity without energy intensity and complexity. That’s right greens we are going back to 18th and 19th century living. Get a grip greenies.
Kenz300 on Tue, 19th May 2015 8:15 am
The transition to safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources continues to grow every year.
The Renewable Revolution | Michael T. Klare
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-t-klare/the-renewable-revolution_b_7078904.html
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Renewables Account for 75 Percent of New US Generating Capacity in First Quarter of 2015
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2015/04/renewables-account-for-75-percent-of-new-us-generating-capacity-in-first-quarter-of-2015
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