Group8_A | SDG 7 : Affordable and Clean Energy

In the last three decades global population has increased by 2.7 billion ^[1]. Consequently, the demand for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and other necessities for human survival in today’s era has increased exponentially. Like, the number of people with access to electricity has gone up by 1.7 billion across the world during this time-period. This is one of numerous examples that bolsters the fact that the demand for cheap energy has risen significantly.

The problem is not with the risen demand but with the ways we are catering to it. Currently, we are meeting a major portion of this demand through non-renewable conventional modes of energy like fossil fuels. Such resources of energy emit pollutants like SO_x, NO_x, greenhouse gases, and suspensions. This creates problems for the entire ecosystem and has a visible impact on pretty much everything. Not only this, but the extraction and consumption of such energy resources has contributed the most towards the climate change. Australian fires, Amazon fires, Maharashtra floods and droughts, irregular monsoon, rapid Earth warming are some of the examples that validate that global warming is no hoax. If the global average surface temperatures rise by another 1.5 to 2.5 °C, a fraction of life would be extinct by the year 2100 ^[2]. This would lead to major destructive changes in the food webs within ecosystems.

The future looks daunting and bleak if we do not act right now.

Still 1 in 5 people around the world does not have access to electricity; This shows that the demand for the same would continue to rise in the foreseeable future and thus alternative, renewable, and affordable energy resources like solar, thermal, wind, tidal etc that do not pollute our nature and simultaneously sustain our ever-growing energy demand is required.

This article would further elucidate the status and future scope of the affordable and clean energy resources in the following subsections.

RELEVANCE OF THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL TO INDIA

^[5] The Sustainable development goal “Affordable and clean energy” aims to ensure affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy access to all.

The challenge and why is this SDG important?

Energy is critical and is directly linked to the national and global progress irrespective of the country being a developing or a developed nation. Yet, majority of the population living in the rural areas of India and other developing countries doesn’t have access to clean energy.

With this in mind, this SDG’s goal is to bring a balance to ensure affordable, reliable and clean energy by 2030. Asia is a leading player in this domain as 72% growth in modern energy consumption was observed only in the developing regions of Asia between 2010 and 2012. Even after continuous growth over the last couple of years, only 15% of the global energy mix was renewable energy sources. India, being a developing nation, can leverage this opportunity to show the world by investing significantly in renewable power sources.  

Indian governments shift towards renewable energy sources for rural electrification and mega power projects is seen through its “National Solar Mission”, so that India can gain energy efficiency.

BUSINESS IMPLICATION AND RESPONSES

Repercussions of conventional energy resources are not only limited to the environment but essentially to everything that we do as a society ^[3] and business is no exception. A great deal of risk is present if businesses don’t change their ways of doing their activities with the changing sentiments towards the conventional energy sources. Few of those have been discussed below.

1.     Resource Supply and Cost: Reserves of fossil fuels are depleting because of their over exploitation. If things continue the same way, it would become costly and difficult to procure for energy needs. Consequentially, electricity, fuel prices etc would shoot up and conducting business profitably would become next to impossible. But, with the switch to clean energy firms would never have to bother about all this.

2.      Demand: Consumer behaviour has changed significantly in the last few decades. They want to consume goods that are least detrimental to the environment and with the growing prevalence about environment conservation, people might end up boycotting firms all together that are doing businesses in archaic ways that is damaging environment only for the materialistic greed (profits). Thus, pre-emptive and preventive steps must be taken by the firms in the direction towards sustainability.

3.      Working Conditions: Conventional energy resources poses health hazards to the workforce like heightened risk of diseases that are caused by prolonged exposure to excessive emissions and heat. If firms switch to cleaner energy, working conditions for their work force (electricity/energy department) would significantly improve.

4.      Strict Regulations: Federal governments of different countries are levying heavy taxes on firms based on their contribution towards air pollution. Firms can dodge these heavy fines if they switch to cleaner energy resources. As such energy resources doesn’t contribute towards air pollution.

5.      Increased Public Pressure: Public pressure on firms has increased significantly to adopt eco-friendly practices. Businesses like IKEA, Swiss RE, Apple, and Nestle claim to consume 100% renewable energy for their business practices and more and more firms are joining the wagon.

RESPONSE

The very first step that businesses undertake is to do an assessment of the impact and risks associated with the continued usage of conventional and non-renewable energy in their day-to-day operations. This helps them in identifying opportunities to minimise their business risk and to better their environment performance. Companies are setting “Green Targets” to be met in certain time-periods. This highlights the fact that they have become more environment conscious, through such initiatives they try to emphasise the point that they have a plan for sustainable future. They have realised the fact that they have to remain relevant and appeal to the prevalent eco-friendly behaviour among the consumers that are expecting good corporate citizenship. Like, Intel constructed several solar farms across nine countries, occupying a total space of three million sq. ft, to satisfy its yearly energy demand of 3.1 billion kWh ^[4]. Similarly, Apple aims to become carbon neutral. It has several solar farms which are allocated to its data centres. Likewise, Google achieved carbon neutrality back in 2007 only. These are one of such numerous examples.

One thing that is clear is non-conventional energy resources are inevitable hence all the businesses should start pushing into this direction if they want to sustain in the long run.

ANALYSIS

^[7] Globally, some targets have been set for the year 2030 as far as SDG 7 is concerned. They are:

7.1: To ensure access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services.

As of 2020, 789 million people, almost 10% of world’s population could not light their homes, cook food or stay warm in chilling temperatures as they lacked access to electricity. Also, around 2.8 billion people around the world rely on animal waste, charcoal or biomass fuel for cooking, which suggests that there is a lot to be done.

SEforALL research demonstrates that investments into better access to electricity are well short of expenditure necessary for global access, that needs to be achieved by 2030. For this cause, SDG7 calls for steps by 2030 to close the energy loopholes.

7.2: To effectively increase the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.

Focus towards renewable energy sources has increased significantly in the last 5 years with over 50% growth in net global capacity addition. Developing countries that lack the basic energy grids can and should utilize solar and other decentralized solutions to fill the energy gaps, at lower costs.

However, according to a research report by energizing finance indicates that only 1% finance was given to decentralized and renewable energy solutions in the 20 countries that face the largest energy deficit. And even though it is a positive that financing for decentralized and renewable energy solutions has doubled, but on the other side, the same has tripled for conventional sources. This suggests that while our reliability on renewable energy has increased, the % share is decreasing as the global demand is increasing rapidly with every passing day.

7.3: Doubling the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency.

China has seen a 25% drop in electricity bills and Germany saves close to $575 per person due to energy efficiency. Looking at their progress, other countries like Japan and Italy are also following their footsteps. Yet, for most countries, the investment in energy efficiency practises and solutions is nowhere close to the required levels. Hence, especially for the developing countries, it is also very important to focus on energy efficiency if they intend to reach their Targets by 2030.

7.4: Enhance international co-operation in facilitating access to the clean energy research and technology, including energy efficiency, renewable energy, cleaner fossil-fuel technology, and to promote investment in clean energy technology and energy infrastructure.

7.5: Upgrade technology and expand infrastructure for supplying modern and sustainable energy services for all in developing countries.

THE WAY AHEAD 

^[6] The prospective steps that we as sustainable beings tend to walk on are simple in theory but much harder when it comes to implementation. Here are a few suggestive steps that we recommend with a big prerequisite – “World Works Together” and “Governments are Pro-active”:

1.      Prioritize Clean-Cooking Solutions – As per the Energy Access Platform, two in five, or nearly 3 billion people ^[8] rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste for cooking and heating. This affects both the environment and the health of people living inside the house immensely. The governments should make this as a priority to provide cleaner cooking solutions (BLEN fuels) – biogas, liquefied petroleum gas, electricity, and natural gas – to its citizens.

2.      Accelerate the Transition to Smart Cities – Governments should start investing into cleaner generation and use of energy through adoption of smart cities. Basic elements of a smart city will include, electric cars, electric public transport, power generation via wind, hydro etc. Once we reach economies of scale here, both the government or firms involved here will be profitable and be able to provide energy at cheaper rates.

3.      Decentralize Renewable Energy Solutions- This is probably the most important objective which might be far off in the future but should be the final frontier. Make people self sufficient to generate their own power at their homes/offices. Companies such as solar city are working on this idea by exchanging roof tiles by solar cells tiles. Though far ahead, this is the final goal to reach to achieve affordable and clean energy.

4.      Change in Attitude and Awareness- Nothing can happen if the people in general are not excited and concerned about the sustainable and clean energy. It is imperative that people adopt, accept, and demand cleaner sources of energy in-turn putting pressure on the government and firms to provide and switch to cleaner methods.

All these points that are stated require great amount of global collaboration and intent by the governments of countries and biggest firms of the world. With the global collusion and collaborative intent, we can safely secure a sustainable future of affordable and clean energy.

REFERENCES

1.      https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/population/

2.      https://www.britannica.com/science/global-warming/Environmental-consequences-of-global-warming

3.      https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/emily-folk/how-climate-change-will-affect-businesses-20181109/

4.      https://www.trvst.world/inspiration/companies-that-use-renewable-energy

5.      https://in.one.un.org/page/sustainable-development-goals/sdg-7/

6. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/195532018_background_notes_SDG_7Final1.pdf

7.      https://www.seforall.org/data-and-evidence/understanding-sdg7

8.      http://energyaccessplatform.org/index.php/focus-areas/clean-cooking