Events
Thematic Session: Sustaining efforts to ensure access to sustainable energy
Tue 30 Jun 2020, 1.50 pm — Wed 03 Feb 2021, 12.50 pm
Online
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Background
Co-conveners: DESA, IMO, UNIDO
External experts listed on this page and the following United Nations entities have also contributed to the workstream: ESCWA, OHRLLS, OSAA, UNDRR, UNEP.
Energy lies at the heart of both the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. As governments worldwide tackle the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, we must not lose sight of the critical need for an accelerated clean energy transition. Ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030 will open a new world of opportunities for billions of people through new economic opportunities and jobs, empowered women, children and youth, better education and health, more sustainable, equitable and inclusive communities, and greater protections from, and resilience to, climate change impacts. Achieving SDG 7 will catalyze actions to combat climate change and advance targets of other SDGs and will contribute to accelerate transition to carbon neutral economy.
Guiding questions:
- How does/will the COVID-19 crisis and associated volatility in oil prices affect the energy sector?
- How can clean energy investments contribute to a better and stronger recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic?
- How do we deploy the four “levers” identified in the GSDR - governance, economy and finance, science and technology, and individual and collective action – to accelerate the clean energy transition?
- How do we accelerate the clean energy transition, while expanding access to electricity, achieving progress on clean cooking and ensuring the increase in transport movements is sustainable?
- How can we mainstream decarbonization, decentralization and digitalization of energy systems into updated Nationally Determined Contributions to maximize synergies between the energy transition and climate action?
- What are the outstanding challenges, and best practices to mobilize finance for clean energy investments, in particular in particular least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states?
- How do we advance the SDG Decade of Action through innovative and knowledge-based policies and partnerships? What affordable, reliable and gender-responsive energy solutions do frontier technologies offer?
