By Atâyi Babs
At the second annual UN SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FOR ALL FORUM holding from the 18th to the 21st May 2015, leaders from government, business and civil society will announce new commitments and drive action to end energy poverty and fight climate change.
They will present ways to catalyze finance and investment at the scale required to meet the targets of the UN Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative on energy access, energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Over 1,000 practitioners will share and advance innovative energy solutions.
The Forum will build momentum on energy issues ahead of both the September UN Summit to adopt the post-2015 development agenda, and the December Climate Conference in Paris, and contribute to shaping the direction of energy policy for the crucial decades to come.
Among those expected as participants are Over 40 ministers of energy, finance and development R&B artist and philanthropist Akon, co-founder of Akon Lighting Africa Initiative.
Global leaders, including private sector CEOs, heads of UN agencies, development banks and other international organizations as well as leaders from broader civil society, including the research and investment communities. Also participating are more than 1,000 energy innovators and practitioners from both the developing and the developed world, including women’s and youth groups active on energy issues.
With R&B artist Akon and other global leaders leading sessions organized by energy innovators to share and advance sustainable energy solutions, financing, renewable energy – both on and off grid, access to modern cooking fuels, cookstoves and lighting, energy efficiency initiatives, climate action and reducing gas flaring would also be disccused just as policy innovations, energy for women’s and children’s health, and growing the sustainable energy movement are other issues the forum aspires to address.
Launched by the UN Secretary-General in 2011, the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, a multi-stakeholder partnership, aims to achieve three inter-linked global targets: to ensure universal access to modern energy services, to double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency and to double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, all by 2030. At the UN, governments have already identified sustainable energy as one of the new generation of sustainable development goals that are expected to be adopted in September.
Currently one out of five people lives without access to electricity, and nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population rely on wood, coal, charcoal or animal waste to cook and heat their homes, leading to over four million deaths each year, mostly women and children, from the effects of indoor smoke. How to address this energy poverty while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate change is a crucial global challenge.
