Critical Analysis: Energy in Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 7)

This essay provides a critical analysis of the role of energy in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a specific focus on SDG 7: ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all. The essay highlights the importance of energy in various contexts, including job creation, climate change mitigation, and overall sustainable development. It explores the goals of SDG 7, such as increasing renewable energy share and improving energy efficiency. The essay also examines the benefits of energy access, like improved health and economic development, and the issues that may hinder SDG 7 achievement, such as a lack of systematic planning and innovative approaches. The analysis further discusses the role of energy in economic development, environmental protection, and social inclusion. The essay concludes by emphasizing the critical role of energy in achieving sustainable development and the need for innovative approaches to overcome the challenges in implementing SDG 7. The essay includes references to relevant UN documents and reports.

1
Energy in Sustainable Development Goals

2
Introduction
Energy is the most important element in every challenge and opportunity from which
organization deals in modern world. Energy is important in each and every context such as job,
security, climate change, agriculture, or income scales. In sustainable development also, energy
play important role as it ensures the strong connection with the Climate Change. It mainly
focuses on increasing the access of parties to energy, energy efficiency and use of renewable
energy in mainstream process in order to create new economic and employment opportunities.
As both the elements are important for building new communities which are sustainable and
inclusive, and they prevent serious issues such as climate change (UN, 2018b).
This essay mainly conducts the critical analysis of the role of energy in Sustainable Development
Goals, and it further identifies the main issues which might arise in achieving the SDG related to
energy that is SDG 7 defined by the United Nations. Brief conclusion is stated at the end of the
essay.
About SDG 7
SDG 7 (Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy) is the goal defined
by the United Nations in terms of achieving the sustainability, and following are goals of SDG 7-
 By 2030, UN ensures universal access to the affordable, reliable, and modern energy
services.
 This goal focuses on increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix
by the year 2030.
 UN further focus on double up the rate of improvement in energy efficiency by the year
2030.
 By the year 2030, UN focuses on enhancing the cooperation at global level in terms of
facilitating the access to clean energy research and technology.
 By the year 2030, this organization wants to expand their infrastructure and upgrade
technology to ensuring supply of modern and sustainable energy efficiency (UN, 2018a).
Role of Energy
In 2015, the UN General Assembly adopts the 2030 agenda for sustainable development and it’s
Sustainable Development Goals which mainly includes the dedicated and stand-alone goal on
energy that is SDG 7 which is called as “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and
modern energy for all". Energy mainly lies at the heart of both 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Ensuring the access to affordable,
reliable, and modern energy for every individual will result in the new opportunities and jobs. It
further facilitates the empowered women, children, youth, education, health, more sustainability,
greater protection for climate change (Riahi, 2017).

3
It must be noted that, energy is the approach that mainly connects the growth of economy, social
equity, and environmental sustainability. With the help of energy individuals will get number of
benefits such as they access education, get job opportunities, and other benefits also. In other
words, number of opportunities is generated by the sustainable energy, as it helps in transforming
factors such as economy of countries, people’s lives and the planet. Access to electricity provides
various palpable health benefits to individuals across the globe and result in improving their
wellbeing. One of the key factors which cause climate change is production of usable energy
which accounts for over 60 percent of the total greenhouse gas emissions by organizations and
individuals (IISD, no date).
Fossil fuel subsidy reform is mainly listed as the means of implementation for the achievement
of the SDGs, and this happens because of the large fiscal savings which can be used in terms of
financing the development priorities. However, fossil fuel subsidies are important for achieving
of greater energy access for the large number of populations which is presently lives in the
energy poverty. It can be said that, fossil fuel subsidies can hinder the approach of clean energy
access. This can be understood with the help of example, kerosene subsidies are given in number
of countries such as South Asia, Africa and Latin America. These countries focus on lock-in the
kerosene use in cooking and further lighting by giving the financial incentive for its
consumption. Those energy subsidies which are well designed have positive role to play as well
such as number of subsidies targeted the rural solar home systems in Bangladesh and this helped
almost 3 million households in context of gaining access to the electricity and displaced the
kerosene lighting (IC-SD, 2017).
It can be evaluated based on the outcomes that energy is a key part when it comes to handling
social, environmental and economic aspects based on which SDGs are focused. It is a key factor
of economic development, environment protection and social inclusion. In terms of social aspect,
the shortage of admittance to energy is one of the major restraints in terms of the key goal of the
program 2030 that relies on the abolition of the thrilling scarcity.
Appropriate access to energy sources resulted in improving life expectancy rate by giving people
access to appropriate healthcare and quality education which enhance their quality of life.
Moreover, electricity can be used for improving traditional rural and agricultural activities which
are time-consuming, and it resulted in empowering women and children to develop their social
potential in their households and society.
Additionally, electricity can be generated through energy which can be used for cooking and
heating through less polluting systems. It also provides access to safe drinking water along with
services such as telecommunication. It promotes industrialization as well as development of an
inclusive human settlement. In the case of economic dimensions, energy plays a crucial role
because it is difficult to achieve sustainable economic development without appropriate access to
energy. It is a key component without which organizations cannot provide their products and
services which allow them to expand their business and create employment opportunities across

4
the globe. At the end in terms of environmental perspective, access to renewable and clean
energy significant is for reducing threats related to the climate change and it also prevents the use
of unsustainable firewood which ultimately reduces the deforestation and soil degradation (SDG,
2018).
Issue for SDG achievement
There are number of innovative approaches which have been adopted by the authorities in terms
of effecting the transformational variations in the energy sector. In terms of technical framework,
innovation includes number of things such as mobile applications, prepaid facilities, net
metering, PAYG or pay-as-you-go services and others. In the case of institutions, many affords
have been made to meet energy demand in order to increase the output and living opportunities.
However, in order to develop fuel economy technologies and introducing real improvements in
the fuel economy, the worldwide fuel budget initiative is working which is a partnership that is
formed between international bodies.
By using different training methods, many employment opportunities have been created in order
to support liveliness. Dissimilar financial frameworks and business replicas have been put to the
test over directing and making the credit guarantee schemes, setting up of ESCOs, and this
happens by speaking the blocks related to the monetary, technology, controlling, and policy
institutions and application of energy sector projects (SDG, no date).
The main issue faced by authorities in achieving the SDG 7 is the non-confirmation of the
innovative approaches to the definition related to the capacity development. In other words, there
is no systematic plan for achieving this goal in the organization. It must be noted that, it is very
difficult to achieve the SDG 7 across all the countries, which means, further capacity building for
achieving this goal becomes more difficult for UN with the passing of time.
For resolving this issue, number of actions is taken by the organization such as experts agencies
are involved in preparing the systematic plan. Further, UN can share the knowledge and
experience with the different governments of different nations in terms of the policies and
procedures adopted by these nations (SDG, 2018b).
Conclusion
After considering the points of this essay, it is clear that energy play important role in the
sustainable development goals. It mainly focuses on increased access of energy, increased in
energy efficiency and the increased use of renewable energy with the help of new economic and
job opportunities. Energy access for the purpose of improving the quality of life from the time it
gives better health care services and enhances the life expectancy of the people, and it also
enhances the possibility to access the quality education. Furthermore, electricity and its usage in

5
rural activities resulted in eliminating time consuming process, especially in the case of women
and children.

6
References
IC-SD, (2017) SDG 7 as an enabling factor for sustainable development: the role of technology
innovation in the electricity sector. [Online] Available at
http://ic-sd.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/01/AlloisioUpdate.pdf. Accessed on 2nd
November 2018.
IISD, (no date) Sustainable Development Goals. [Online] Available at
https://www.iisd.org/sites/default/files/publications/sustainable-development-goals-iisd-
prespectives.pdf. Accessed on 2nd November 2018.
Riahi, K. (2017) SDG 7 ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for
all. [Online] Available at https://council.science/cms/2017/03/SDGs-interactions-7-clean-
energy.pdf. Accessed on 2nd November 2018.
SDG, (2018a) Launch of Policy Briefs on SDG 7 on Energy and its Interlinkages with other
SDGs. [Online] Available at https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/?
page=view&nr=2749&type=13&menu=1634. Accessed on 2nd November 2018.
SDG, (2018b) Policy Brief #7 Enhancing Capacity Building For SDG 7. [Online] Available at
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/17474PB_7_Draft.pdf. Accessed on
2nd November 2018.
SDG, (no date) Energy for sustainable development. [Online] Available at
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/energy. Accessed on 2nd November 2018.
UN, (2018a ) Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy. [Online]
Available at https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/energy/. Accessed on 2nd November
2018.
UN, (2018b) Affordable and clean energy: why it matters. [Online] Available at
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Goal-7.pdf. Accessed
on 2nd November 2018.

7