The COVID-19 crisis and another year of extreme weather events and climate change were projected to exacerbate the stark worldwide inequalities in access to reliable energy and health care, especially in rural and peri-urban areas, and highlighted the importance of expanding access to clean, e"cient energy to help populations mitigate the e!ects of both the health and environmental crises. [...] In this context, the SDG#7 custodian agencies—IEA, IRENA, the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO)—urge the international community and policy makers to safeguard the gains made toward achieving SDG#7; to remain committed to the need for continued action on a!ordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all; and to maintain a s. [...] The pace of annual access growth was faster than in previous years, as access infrastructure projects were finalized, but the annual rate of growth in access slowed from 0.8 percentage points in 2010–18 to 0.5 percentage points in 2018–20, because of the complexity of reaching the remaining unserved populations and the potential impacts of COVID-19. [...] Excluding traditional uses of biomass, Latin America and the Caribbean is the region with the largest share of modern renewables in TFEC, thanks to significant hydropower generation, the consumption of bioenergy in industrial processes, and the use biofuels for transport. [...] However, the pace of progress in electrification has slowed in recent years because of the increasing complexity of reaching more remote and poorer unserved populations and because of the expected impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Pages
- 273
- Published in
- United Arab Emirates
