Abstract
Energy is fundamental to socio-economic growth for the world; but how this energy is generated and distributed would determine whether the world could achieve a sustainable future. There is no denying the fact that energy is one of the primary sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Thus, addressing the climate crisis, sustainable energy lies at the core of both the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Paris Agreement. Among other goals, SDG 7 calls for affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030 (UNDP, 2017). Globally, about 1.2 billion people lack access to electricity. The situation is more dire for clean cooking with about 2.8 billion people – 30% of the world’s population – lacking access (Sustainable Energy for All, 2020). The fact is that the energy use in developing countries would continue to increase (Catherine, Orie, & Paul, 2012). This growth could provide an opportunity for the deployment of renewable energy sources, as well as the creation of new, more efficient energy infrastructure. Unfortunately, for developing countries, the clean energy solutions are neither affordable nor accessible, even with the decline in the cost of renewable energy technologies. As a result, many global initiatives and partnerships, such as Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Green Climate Fund (GCF) have been established and working towards achieving this goal (Global Environment Facility (GEF), 2017). However, there is still a need to emphasize and reinforce this partnership to achieve the universal energy access by 2030. The world community has developed many platforms and financing mechanisms to transfer the resources from industrialized nations to developing countries, such as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) under Kyoto protocol (UNFCCC, 2012). However, these mechanisms have not been really effective in encouraging investments in clean energy due to low carbon pricing. Hence, this necessitates for international community to come forward for the development of innovative assistance programs for developing nations by investing more resources to achieve SDG 7. Therefore, to accelerate the clean energy transition, global parternerhips and technological platforms will be needed to make clean energy investment economically competitive and viable. This work presents a case study on Pakistan’s response to achieve the SDG 7 under the UN global mission of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) program. It discusses the key milestones, barriers and lessons learnt on SDG 7. Based on the experiences of Pakistan, this work explores viable alternatives of financing mechanisms to accelerate sustainable energy. The paper concludes with key recommendations as to how global partnership could unleash the technological and financial opportunities in achieving ambitious and universal goals of sustainable energy.
Clean energy choice and use by the urban households in India: Implications for sustainable energy for all
