World must redouble efforts on sustainable energy goals: UN-backed report

The world must redouble its efforts to achieve universal access to sustainable energy by 2030 through increasing energy investments and transferring technology to countries with less capacity, said a UN-backed report released Monday.

The report entitled Progress toward Sustainable Energy tracked the progress of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative and found that 1.1 billion people in the world still live without electricity and almost 3 billion still cook with polluting fuels like kerosene, wood and charcoal.

The Sustainable Energy for All initiative has three goals on sustainable energy access, namely to ensure universal access to modern energy services, to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and to double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

During the tracking period of 2010-2012, the consumption of modern renewable energy resources, such as wind, water and sun, grew at an annual rate of 4 percent, falling short of the 7.5 percent required to meet the target, said the report.

In addition, primary energy intensity, which is used by the report to measure energy efficiency, improved by more than 1.7 percent a year over the tracking period, but the rate is still a full percentage point slower than the required 2.6 percent annual improvement rate between 2010 and 2030, it said.

To help close the gaps, the report proposed to triple the energy investments from current level to 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars to support the progress in needed areas, and it also asks for transferring knowledge and technologies to countries with less capacity to adopt sustainable energy.

The report, compiled by the World Bank, was released on the occasion of the opening of second annual UN forum on Sustainable Energy for All. The forum is set for May 18-21, and will move to the UN headquarters on May 20-21 for the Global Energy Ministerial. Endite