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SDG 7
SDG 7
SDG 7
Kamkwanba, who had dropped out of school then, saw picture of a windmill and set about making
one from scrap PVC pipes, rusty bicycle and car parts and blue gum trees. His windmill began
powering lights in his room.
Today, Kamkwamba is a senior in high school at the African Leadership Academy, Johannesburg. His
windmills, still functioning have grown in numbers and now provide clean water for the village,
micro-irrigation in the fields, mobile phone services and internet. Kids from his village now aim for
education. They no longer have to study under the sooty flame of kerosene lamps.
Kamkwamba’s story repeats itself across countries and continents. It succinctly captures how lives
can be transformed just by ensuring access to electricity. Sustainable Development Goal 7 aims as
just the same for everyone.
SDG 7:
The experiences and learnings from implementing the Millennium Development Goals for tackling
poverty took shape into 17 interconnected goals, called the Sustainable Development Goals at the
United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development at Rio de Janeiro (Rio +20, 2012). SDG 7
aimed at ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all is an essential
part of these 17 goals. It has 5 targets under it:
7.1 By 2030, ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services
7.2 Increasing substantially the share of clean energy in the global energy mix by 2030
7.a By 2030, enhancing cooperation between countries to facilitate access to clean energy
research and technologies, including clean energy, energy efficiency, and advanced and
cleaner fossil fuel technologies, and promoting investment in energy infrastructure and
clean energy technologies
7.b By 2030, expanding infrastructure and upgrading technology for implementing modern
and sustainable energy services for everyone in developing countries, particularly LDCs and
SIDS
The Paris Climate Accords (COP 21, 2015) and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015)
provide common standards to these targets, help in evaluating our current standing and efforts
required to achieve them. A set of indicators have been developed to assess the progress. These
include:
The global electrification rate rose from about 83 per cent in 2010 to 87 per cent in 2015,
with the increase accelerating to 89 per cent in 2017. Unfortunately, some 840 million people
around the world still don’t have access to electricity.
The global share of the population with ready access to clean cooking fuels and
technologies became 61 per cent in 2017 from 57 per cent in 2010. Despite this, close to 3 billion
people still depend primarily on inefficient & polluting cooking systems.
The clean energy share of total energy consumption slowly increased from 16.6 per cent in
2010 to 17.5 per cent six years later, though much faster change is required to meet climate
goals. Though the absolute level of clean energy consumption has increased by more than 18 per
cent since 2010, only since 2012(which is not enough to meet the goals) has the growth of clean
energy outpaced the growth of total energy consumption.
Globally, the ratio of energy used per unit of GDP, improved from 5.9 in 2010 to 5.1 in six
years, a rate of improvement of 2.3 per cent, which is still not enough to reach the 2.7 per cent
annual rate needed to reach target 3 of SDG 7.
International economic help to developing countries in support of renewable energy
reached $18.6 billion in 2016, doubling from $9.9 billion in 2010.