World leaders are to meet for the Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention.
A few days before this event scheduled from October 31 to November 12 in Glasgow, Scotland, stakeholders will underline that the lack of investment in clean energies undermines the fight against climate change and poverty.
New research shows that by 2030, the chronic lack of financing in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia will prevent several billion people from accessing clean electricity and cooking.
For example, the latest series of Energizing Finance reports developed in partnership with the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) reveal that, for the seventh year in a row, global investments are seriously below the levels required to ensure energy access for all by 2030.
Tracking electricity funding even showed that in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, the 20 countries with 80 percent of the world’s population had electricity problems.
In other words, high-impact countries had experienced a drop in investment of around 27 percent.
Further declines in energy access investments are already anticipated for 2020 and 2021, due to the economic difficulties associated with the pandemic.
The level of funding for clean cooking fuels remains desperately low.
Polluting cooking fuels cause millions of premature deaths each year and are the second largest contributor to climate disruption, behind carbon dioxide.
Yet, based on investments recorded in 2019, only US$133.5 million was spent on developing clean cooking fuels that year.
This falls far short of the estimated $4.5 billion needed annually to ensure universal access to clean cooking (and that only covers the purchase of clean cookstoves).
“We are at a critical juncture in the energy and climate debate,” said Damilola Ogunbiyi, Chief Executive Officer and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy.
She said it is now clear that the goal of zero net emissions will only be achieved through a just and equitable energy transition, providing access to affordable clean energy for the 759 million people without electricity and the 2.6 billion people without clean cooking facilities.
“This requires deploying resources to combat climate change, create new opportunities for economic development and enable people around the world to live in prosperity” she argued.
In 2018, 50 percent of all electricity financing was invested in grid-connected fossil fuels within high-impact countries, up from 25 percent in 2019.
This is a positive development for the climate, according to the study.
At the same time, it shows a decline in investment in off-grid technologies and mini-grids, which accounted for only 0.9 percent of electricity spending.
TE/odl/lb/as/APA