The Role of Energy in Achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals

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SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
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Abstract
The essay states the importance of energy in the Sustainable Development goals. The 17
goals set out by the United Nations are directed to improve the condition of the fast depleting
natural resources. The importance of energy for each of the goals is the point of discussion.
Energy is required for industrial growth in a country. Industries are essential for the growth
and prosperity of a nation. The energy is also required for cooking and generation of
electricity for industries and domestic households. The issues that countries across the world
are facing in implementing the sustainable development plans are discussed. The possible
solutions are also provided to tackle these issues. The funds become an important issue for
the developing nations. The United Nations Development Programme helps the nations by
funding them and providing the necessary guidelines. The sustainable development aims at
improving the world to make it a better place to live in.
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Introduction
The principle of sustainable development forms the foundation of the global framework at
present. Sustainable development refers to the development of the human society, through
sustained use of natural resources. The primary aim is to deplete as less natural resources as
possible and try to save them for the future generations. The world has set 17 sustainable
development goals. The goals or the targets are universal thus making it mandatory for each
country to reach these goals.
The essay aims to assess the role of energy in Sustainable Development Goals, provide
arguments regarding the issues that may affect these goals and provide solutions to the
mentioned issues.
Discussions
The world community has set 17 universal Sustainable Development Goals, to meet the
requirements of Sustainable developments. In the opinions of Holden et al. (2017), these
sustainable development goals have targets that every country in the world needs to achieve
by 2030. The implementation of these Sustainable Development Goals is highly dependent
on energy. The conservation of energy is a basic aim of Sustainable Development. Thus,
sustainable use of energy is mandatory in this context.
SDG 1 and 2 are aimed at battling poverty and hunger across the world. According to Weaver
et al. (2017), energy is the basic requirement for food production. The availability of cheap
energy for cooking of food has direct impact on the well being of communities,
economically. The use of sustainable forms of energy in cooking and agriculture is
mandatory. The farm energy has to be clean, safe and renewable for agriculture to flourish.
SDG 3 and 4 has the improvement in health and increase in the rate of education across the
world as the primary aim. In the views of Broman and Robèrt (2017), the use of sustainable
sources of energy has large-scale implications when it comes to health of a society. The shift
from fossil fuels as a source of energy to alternative sustainable sources of energy will see a
huge decrease in the emission of harmful gases. Education too is highly dependent on energy.
Education in schools and colleges is highly dependent on electricity, mainly good lighting.
Gender equality and water are the key issues that are given attendance in SDG 5 and 6.
According to Bridge et al. (2018), the women and girls in low-income societies, especially in
Africa have to source cooking fuel. This needs additional time, thus dividing the time even
more. The availability of fuel for cooking will help these women to save time. Water and
energy are interlinked terms. Water is used in the production of energy and energy is required
for the pumping and transportation of water to domestic and industrial consumers. The
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conservation of both water and energy is important, as both are necessary for life on the
planet. SDG 7 has its focus on the issue of the requirement for affordable and clean energy.
Economic growth is the key concept behind SDG 8. At present, 39% of world population do
not have access to energy (In.one.un.org, 2017). Sustainable Energy is an essential
requirement in today's world. The economic growth and the social growth of a country is
highly dependent on the amount of sustainable energy available in the country. The world
communities have aimed to reduce this deficit by ensuring that everyone gets access to cheap
sustainable energy by 2030.
The industrialization of a place depends highly on the available energy resources, especially
renewable and sustainable energy resources (In.one.un.org, 2017). The SDG 9 is based on the
industrialization of the world. Renewable sources of energy are the need of the hour, when it
comes to industrialisation of the world. SDG 10 focuses on the reduction of inequalities in
the world. These inequalities can be in any form. The inequality in the availability of energy
is a major example, as the world suffers from this. In the words of Nicolescu (2018), the
increased balance in the world in case of energy distribution is the requirement of the hour.
Sustainable cities are the centres of sustainable development. The cities can be called
productive only when the energy of the city is clean and well managed. The safety measures
while using such energy is also important. The SDG 11 has its attention on sustainable cities
and communities. SDG 12 has its focus on sustainable production and consumption.
Production process requires huge amount of energy and the distribution of the produced
goods for consumption to require considerable amount of energy.
The change in the climate can be highly attributed to the increased level of pollutions.
Burning of fossil fuels is a source of high amount of pollutants. The use of alternative sources
of energy is necessary to curb the pollution. This is the focus of SDG 13, while SDG 14
deals with the conservation of life under water, which is also possible by reducing pollution.
The energy fight cannot be fought alone; the entire world needs to join hands in this venture.
The peace and prosperity of the world depends upon mixed efforts. The SDG 15, SDG 16 and
SDG 17 deal with life on land, peace and prosperity of the world and combined efforts to
sustainable developments respectively. Thus, energy is essential for the fulfilment of the
Sustainable Development goals.
Sustainable development has become an integral part of the development policy of countries
across the globe. However, there are problem to the principle of sustainable development that
cannot be neglected. Sustainable development has a lot of issues that needs to be handled
through a lot of concentrated efforts. In the opinions of Pradhan et al. (2017), efforts need to
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be from both the developed and the developing nations. This is a major challenge as the
developing nations have to bear an extra burden. As opined by Gould et al. (2019), the
developing countries often face the problem of meeting up with the financial resources
required to implement the plan of sustainable development. The plan requires huge inputs on
the part of the countries. As stated by Biermann, Kanie and Kim (2017), the implementation
of the plan also depends on the internal and the external situations of any nation. A country
that is war torn or witnesses a large number of terrorist attacks will have added difficulty in
implementing a sustainable development plan. They have other issues to attend to and also
have to divert their economies to settle these issues. The occurrence of natural disasters too
disrupts the implementation of the plans. The United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) strategizes the policies that are required to implement the plans of Sustainable
Development. The key policy is to help the countries integrate the Sustainable Development
Goals into the national development plans of the nations (undp.org, 2018). The focus is on
issues like poverty alleviation, economic inequality, peace building and so on.
The issue that the countries are facing in implementing the plans for sustainable development
needs to be resolved. Failing to resolve these issues, the implementation of the plans will be
delayed and thus the target of 2030 will be delayed. The government of various countries
needs to come together to help the developing countries and themselves, to achieve the goal.
The developing countries get help from the UN and the developed countries, but due to
corruption there are problems in retaining these funds. The developing nations should tackle
the problem of corruption with immediate effect. A good disaster management system should
be in place for any kind of unforeseen incidents. The funds should be allocated for usage
when required. International peace and security is a goal of Sustainable development plan.
This should be the priority as only international peace can prepare all nations for the
implementation of the Sustainable Development plan. Terrorist activities should be checked
and countries should stay away from both internal and external warfare. The developing
countries with financial assistance of the UN and the developed nations can fulfil their
objectives by 2030.
Conclusion`
Sustainable Development Goals are the set of goals that have been defined by the world, to
make a better world by 2030. There are a total of 17 Sustainable Development goals that have
been framed keeping in mind all the aspects of human life. All countries are required to
achieve specific targets by 2030. The availability of cost effective sustainable energy is
required to meet up all the goals. Energy is the most essential driving force to fulfil these
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goals. It can be concluded that the world community has finally taken the issue of the
degradation and exploitation of natural resources very seriously. They have joined hands to
save the planet and its natural resources from coming to an end. The rate of depletion of the
natural resources is very high. Thus, the sustainable development plan should be
implemented with immediate effect. The immediacy and the magnitude of the concern is
finally given its due importance. The countries across the world are implementing these plans
into their plan of development.
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Reference list
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(2018). Energy and society: a critical perspective. Routledge.
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