At the current pace in 2030 there will still be one person in ten without electricity. Credit: Bigstock

By Stephen Leahy
VIENNA, May 14 2017 (IPS)

It may be the 21^st century but more than three billion people still use fire for cooking and heating. Of those, one billion people have no access to electricity despite a global effort launched at the 2011 Vienna Energy Forum to bring electricity to everyone on the planet.

“We are not on track to meet our goal of universal access by 2030, which is also the Sustainable Development Goal for energy,” said Rachel Kyte, CEO for Sustainable Energy for All and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General.“Indoor air pollution has a bigger health impact than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined.” --Vivien Foster

“We must all go further, faster—together,” Kyte told more than 1500 delegates and government ministers at the 2017 version of the biannual Vienna Energy Forum this week, organized by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO).

Kyte reminded everyone that the 2015 Sustainable Development Goal for energy (SDG 7) was a unanimous promise to bring decarbonized, decentralized energy to everyone and that this would transform the world bringing “clean air, new jobs, warm schools, clean buses, pumped water and better yields of nutritious food”.

Moreover, to prevent catastrophic climate change the world committed to net zero CO2 emissions by 2050 under the 2015 Paris Agreement, she said. “Why are we not moving more quickly?”

At the current pace in 2030 there will still be one person in ten without electricity, according to the Global Tracking Framework 2017 report. Most of those people will be in Africa.

In Chad, Niger, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo only one person in ten currently has access and this is falling as populations increase, said Elisa Portale , an energy economist at the World Bank who presented the report’s findings.

Although renewable energy like solar and wind gets a great deal of press and attention, the world is failing to meet the SDG target of decarbonizing 36 percent the global energy system and will only get to 21 percent by 2030. Currently it is about 18 percent since renewables include hydropower and biomass. A few countries managed to increase their renewable share by 1 percent per year but some others like Canada and Brazil are actually going backwards, she said.

Decarbonizing electricity is going much faster than decarbonizing energy for heating and for transportation, which is seen to be more challenging.

Improvements in energy efficiency are also far behind. Investment in energy efficiency needs to increase by a factor of 3 to 6 from the current 250 billion dollars a year in order to reach the 2030 objective, the report concluded.

The biggest failure the Global Tracking Framework revealed was that the current number of people still using traditional, solid fuels to cook increased slightly since 2011 to 3.04 billion. Those fuels are responsible for deadly levels of indoor air pollution that shorten the lives of tens of millions and kill four million, mainly children, every year according to the World Health Organization.

This seems to be a low priority and by 2030 only 72 percent of the world will be using clean cooking fuels, said Portale. In other words, 2.5 billion people – mostly in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa – will still be burning wood, charcoal or dung to cook their foods.

Clean cooking is not a priority for most governments although Indonesia is doing quite well, said Vivien Foster, Global Lead for Energy Economics, Markets & Institutions, The World Bank. “Indoor air pollution has a bigger health impact than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined,” Foster told IPS.

One reason clean cooking is a low priority is that men are largely the decisions makers in governments and at the household level and they often are not involved in cooking. Environmental health issues generally get far less attention from governments she said. “Sadly, it’s often mobile phones before toilets,” Foster said.

However, the situation in India is dramatically different.

Green energy – decarbonized, decentralized energy — is no longer expensive or difficult. It is also the most suitable form of energy for developing nations because both access and benefits can come very quickly, said Piyush Goyal, India’s Minister of Energy.

Access to clean liquid propane gas (LPG) for cooking has increased 33 percent in the last three years, which is about 190 million homes. In the last year alone 20 million of the poorest of the poor received LPG for free, Goyal told IPS.

Although millions have no connection to electricity, Goyal said it was his personal belief this will no longer be the case by 2019, three years before India’s 2022 target.

“Prime Minister Modi is completely committed to universal access,” he said. “He grew up poor. He knows what it is like to not have electrical power.”

India is adding 160 gigawatt (GW) of wind and solar by 2022 and it may beat that target too as the cost of solar and wind are well below coal, the country’s main source of energy. The US currently has just over 100 (GW) in total. One GW can power 100 million LED lightbulbs used in homes.

On the energy efficiency front, India is also closing in on a target of replacing all of its lighting with LEDs, saving tens of millions in energy costs and reducing CO2 emissions by as much as 80 million tonnes annually.

“We are doing this even if no one else is. We have a big role to play in the fight against climate change,” Goyal said.

Following a lukewarm outcome of the Rio+20 sustainable development negotiations in June, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is moving full-steam ahead on a new initiative aimed at leveraging public-private partnerships to bring modern energy to over one billion people by 2030.

Newly-appointed Special Representative for Sustainable Energy for All, Kandeh Yumkella (right), addresses assembled dignitaries at the United Nations. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (centre) and World bank President Jim Yong Kim will provide additional leadership to the energy initiative. UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Under the moniker Sustainable Energy for All, the new initiative aims to establish universal access to modern energy, double the share of renewable energy worldwide and double the rate of improving energy efficiency over the next two decades.

“Our goals are ambitious,” Ban told country leaders during a high-level discussion on the initiative taking place on the sidelines of the 67th General Assembly in New York on Monday.

In all, the effort will target the approximately 1.3 billion people currently living without access to electricity, 95 percent of whom reside in sub-Saharan Africa and developing Asia.

“We have come a long way, but we have a long road ahead,” the U.N. chief said, referring to gains made since the launch of the initiative last year, which have surpassed expectations for 2012, according to Ban.

So far, over 60 developing countries have signed on to the initiative and upward of 50 billion dollars have been committed by businesses and investors for the global effort that aims to entice the private sector to invest heavily in energy solutions by partnering with public and philanthropic institutions to mitigate investment risks.

In order to provide universal energy access by 2030, investment of 48 billion dollars per year will be needed, according to a vision statement by the secretary-general released at the launch of the initiative.

While that number sounds large – it is five times the investment brought together for expanding energy access in 2009 – it’s only three percent of total global energy investment, according to the statement.

New leadership

To give permanent leadership to the initiative, Ban on Monday appointed Kandeh Yumkella, current director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), as new special representative and CEO of the effort.

In addition, the Secretary-General himself and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim will co-chair a new board to provide strategic guidance, Ban told assembled dignitaries.

Kim called access to energy crucial for economic growth and poverty eradication, referring to both as “the problems of our time”.

Yumkella’s first goal as full-time captain of the initiative is to utilise its 30-member board to grow the existing coalition of partners, including governments, private sector and civil society, the special representative told IPS.

The initiative will have a “solid private sector approach … with clear milestones and meetings every six months,” according to Yumkella, who says the board is particularly zeroing in on current barriers to private investment.

At the same time, he aims to build “a network of networks” for sustainable energy finance that builds on proven strategies.

Need for funding

Developing countries came out in strong support of the initiative on Monday, but also reminded assembled leaders of the unequal burden falling on them to deal with the effects of climate change.

“We are the countries who contribute least to greenhouse emission and are yet hit by it hardest,” the permanent representative of Swaziland said on Monday. “We therefor appeal to our developed partners for support.”

Affected by the global economic crisis, Swaziland is struggling to meet food needs while also trying to grow a green economy.

While the initiative will provide both financial and technical support to countries developing their energy sector, Yumkulla underlined that “this is not an aid model” but one in which donors commit their money to leverage private capital for energy projects.

Commitments

As partner institution, the World Bank, in June, committed to doubling its energy investment to 18 billion a year, with an emphasis on low-carbon energy.

The African Development Bank aims to invest 20 billion in energy by 2020, which it thinks will leverage 80 billion dollars in partnerships.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, meanwhile, is throwing eight billion dollars at the issue over the next three years.

On the private side, Bank of America has will invest approximately 35 billion dollars into renewable energy, efficiency and access over the next 10 years.

Chairman of Bank of America Corp. Charles Holliday – who saw the initiative through its first year – will continue as chairman of its new executive committee.

Women to benefit most

As women make up two-thirds of the world’s poor, lack of energy access causes an unequal drain on women’s time and opportunities, according to Sheila Oparaocha, coordinator of Energia International, a network on gender and sustainable energy that’s a partner to the initiative.

Yet, “across the board, we find that existing energy policies don’t address women and the poor,” Oparaocha told IPS.

Energy solutions ought to target cooking needs and small-scale businesses, she said, adding that real participation of women in energy decision-making is crucial for better governance of the energy sector as a whole.

Rio+ 20

Hopes for increased government investments in a comprehensive sustainable development agenda were shattered in June when Northern governments – mired in a global financial crisis – barely agreed to reaffirm their commitments made 20 years ago.

The secretary-general’s sustainable energy initiative is now focusing on what many post-Rio perceive as the only viable alternative to bridging the finance gap for sustainable development initiatives: leveraging private investment for social good.

About 100 companies and institutions have so far signed onto the initiative – one of the initiative’s biggest achievements to date, Yumkella says.

The other is Monday’s high-level discussions itself – “getting diplomats and world leaders together in New York, and there is no talk about oil and gas but energy for development.”

As a cross-cutting issue, energy solutions influence all of the Millennium Development Goals world leaders are struggling to accomplish by 2015.