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New York City, U.S. – The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed decades of progress in poverty and development—including efforts to completely eradicate energy poverty by the end of this decade.
On Friday, world leaders gathered at the UN General Assembly are expected to renew their commitment to ending energy poverty — and further advance these efforts by developing a road map.
Some 138 energy contracts The UN member states signed these agreements before Friday’s UN High-Level Dialogue on Energy (HLDE), where activists and academics will rub shoulders with world and business leaders.
The meeting will witness the commitment of countries to accelerate their previous commitments to promote clean energy for all by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Member states will step up their efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and specific goals set by the United Nations. The Global 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change Mitigation.
As early as 2015, 193 UN member states made voluntary commitments to fulfill 17 development goals Known as the Sustainable Development Goal by 2030. The ambitious agenda promises to “leave no one behind” by eradicating hunger and poverty and ensuring that all people have access to quality education, clean water and sanitation.
Progress, but not enough
Sustainable Development Goal 7, or Sustainable Development Goal 7, Aims to ensure that by 2030, everyone on the planet has access to clean, reliable and affordable clean energy.
Although energy access has increased in recent years, not everyone is growing.
About 760 million people in the world still have no access to electricity, and 2.6 billion people—one-third of the world’s population—do not have access to clean cooking fuel. International Energy Agency (International Energy Agency).
The coronavirus pandemic has reversed the status quo for decades and further deteriorated the status quo. Development gains with promote Another 97 million people worldwide have fallen back into poverty. Compared with 2019, the number of people facing hunger increased by approximately 118 million last year. According to the United Nations.
in his address United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (Antonio Guterres) at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday emphasized the urgency of taking action before the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) to be held later this year, and warned that the world is “distinguished from reaching our distance.” The goal seems to be light years away.”
The United Nations warned that if the current development trajectory continues, 650 million people will still have no access to electricity by 2030.
The UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All, Damilola Ogunbiyi, told Al Jazeera: “The minimum level of energy access-for example, a simple light-is not enough.” “People need enough electricity to live a healthy and fulfilling life.”
“Will this become foreign clean energy financing?”
Three-quarters of all greenhouse gas emissions come from energy production. According to the United Nations, it is the main cause of the climate crisis, and it hits the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world the hardest.
Reed Blackmore, deputy director of the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, told Al Jazeera that while the challenge of providing clean, affordable energy for all is daunting, there has been some positive momentum recently.
For example, Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a speech at the United Nations on Wednesday that Beijing no longer Funding overseas new coal-fired power projects.
China has previously invested heavily in coal projects in developing countries such as Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Blackmore said the question is, “Will this become foreign clean energy financing?”
Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks remotely during the 76th UN General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York [File: Mary Altaffer/Reuters]As early as 2009, developed countries pledged to raise 100 billion U.S. dollars a year for developing countries by 2020 to help achieve clean and renewable energy goals. According to a recent report, although this amount climbed from US$52.4 billion in 2013 to US$78.3 billion in 2018 (PDF) From the perspective of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, major economic group), there is still a significant gap.
The total amount of climate funding raised by rich countries for developing economies in 2019 was slightly less than US$80 billion, which means that developed countries will need to fill in $20 billion gap, The report said.
Although the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump responded to the setbacks in global climate goals by withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and cutting funding for the United Nations and its agencies, current U.S. President Joe Biden emphasized this week that Washington’s renewed commitment to address climate change. He delivered a speech at the United Nations for the first time since taking office.
“The Biden administration is clearly working to lay the foundation for the United States’ renewed commitment to achieving global climate goals,” Blackmore said.
U.S. Senate last month Approved a $1 trillion infrastructure bill-the largest in decades-to build better roads, bridges, public transportation, and broadband Internet in the next five years.
But time is passing, UN Secretary General Guterres warned this week.
“After all, if people don’t see results in their daily lives, promises are worthless,” he said. “We must take it seriously. We must act quickly.”
Africa and Asia: still in the dark
Three-quarters of the world’s electricity-deficient population (approximately 580 million people) live in sub-Saharan Africa. It is believed that this number increased during the pandemic as the government shifted financial resources to public health response measures. International Energy Agency.
A woman in Soweto, South Africa, uses a paraffin lamp while cooking during a power cut [File: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters]This deficit can be fatal.
The United Nations says that only a quarter of primary medical institutions in Africa have electricity.
About 2.6 billion people in the world do not have access to clean cooking oil and instead rely on solid biomass, kerosene or coal, according to International Energy Agency.
“Not enough electricity or clean cooking options can mean the difference between life and death. It is completely unacceptable to plunge billions of people into energy poverty,” the UN Special Representative Ogunbiyi told Al Jazeera.
Household air pollution mainly comes from cooking smoke, which causes about 2.5 million premature deaths each year, of which women and children are particularly affected.
Although the number of people without clean cooking oil has been declining in the past decade-especially in India and China-the epidemic has the potential to reverse this mild progress.
Blackmore said that clean energy is also the key to getting people out of poverty.
“We must not forget that we need to build these countries and use clean energy to power the entire economy,” he said. “If we consider it in a purely limited sense, then we will not allow these parts of the world to grow across the board powered by clean, sustainable energy.”
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