Objective 7: affordable and clean energy

Energy is essential for almost all the great challenges and opportunities in the present day world, be it work, climate change or food production. However, energy consumption in many countries is still limited, and universal access is not guaranteed. Over 1,000 million people still lack electricity, and over 3,000 million still cook with highly contaminating fuels and inefficient technology, especially in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. There, firewood, which is often hard to find, is the main source of energy, as can be seen in the photo on the left where a man is lighting a small fire to make tea.

However, the more developed countries are avid consumers of energy, especially fossil fuels, and a real revolution is essential –which must also reach less privileged countries- to rapidly substitute energy obtained from oil (which is contaminating, finite and to a large extent responsible for climate change) by renewable, safe and clean energy like solar or wind power, like the wind turbine in the photo on the right. This is part of ecological transition and the aim is to decarbonise the economy.

Progress towards Objective 7 (Guaranteeing access to affordable, safe, sustainable and modern energy for everyone) has been little over the past years, and some of the goals for 2030 are guaranteeing universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services, notably increasing the proportion of renewable energies within energy sources as a whole, doubling the world rate of energy efficiency improvement, and increasing international cooperation.