The world is on the right track to make sustainable energy a reality for everyone by 2030, but that can only happen if countries dramatically accelerate their efforts and have access to the latest technology and additional investments, according to a report launched today.
“Progress Toward Sustainable Energy: Global Tracking Framework 2015” gives a snapshot of how far the world has come in achieving universal access to modern energy, doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and doubling the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix and shows how much work remains to reach these objectives.
So what happened to global access to electricity between 2010 and 2012?
There have been notable advances in electrification—driven primarily by India— but progress in Africa remains far too slow.
- Annual growth in access to electricity reached 0.6 percent, approaching the target growth rate of 0.7 percent required to reach universal access by 2030.
- 222 million people gained access to electricity. As a result, the share of global population with access to electricity rose from 83 to 85 percent, and the number of people without access to electricity declined from 1.2 billion to 1.1 billion.
- 125 million people got access to clean cooking fuel. But 2.9 billion people still use biomass fuels like wood and dung – most of them clustered in rural areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and eastern Asia.