Crises slow progress on SDG 7

This year's edition of the World Bank's SDG 7 progress report, "Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Reports," found worrying regress on SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy). According to the report, 730 million people worldwide still lack access to electricity, and 2.4 billion people cook with fuels that are hazardous to health and the environment. The pandemic has contributed significantly to this poor record with lock-downs, supply chain disruptions, etc., it said. Nearly 90 million people in Asia and Africa who had access to electricity before the pandemic could not afford basic electricity now. The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine had exacerbated the situation. Progress that had occurred in renewable energy during the pandemic had not reached those countries that needed it most.
The report also highlighted that annual global energy efficiency improvement, at 1.9% between 2010 and 2019, is insufficient to achieve SDG 7. A 3.2% rate of improvement would be needed to achieve this.

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