About 675 million people worldwide live without electricity, the vast majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a report released on Tuesday by several organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank (BM).
According to the report, the world is not on track to achieve the sustainable development goal adopted by United Nations (UN) member states in 2015 to provide clean and affordable energy for all by 2030.
The world is facing “a recent slowdown in the pace of global electrification,” said World Bank Vice President Guangzhe Chen.
And while the number of people living without electricity has almost halved in the last decade, 675 million people will still be without it in 2021.
About 80% of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, where the lack of access to electricity remained largely unchanged in 2010.
“While the transition to clean energy is proceeding faster than many expect, much remains to be done to ensure sustainable, safe and affordable access to modern energy services for the billions of people who are deprived of them,” said the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency , Fatih Birol, in a joint statement.
Progress has been made on some fronts, such as increasing the use of renewable energy sources in the electricity sector, but this is not enough to meet the goals of the UN.
Citing data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the report also shows that international government financial flows for clean energy in low- and middle-income countries have declined since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Growing debt and rising energy prices are clouding the prospects for achieving universal access to clean kitchens and electricity, according to the report.
According to current projections, 1.9 billion people will not have access to sustainable cooking methods and 660 million will not have access to electricity in 2030 without new measures.
According to the WHO, 3.2 million people die every year from diseases caused by the use of polluting fuels and technologies.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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