The UN Secretary-General on Friday launched an initiative focusing on ensuring fairness, sustainability and respect for human rights throughout the entire process of sourcing and using critical minerals needed for the clean energy transition.
If the world is to move away from fossil fuels, we will need to extract far more rare minerals, to power renewable energy sources such as wind turbines and solar plants. However, energy experts point out that mining these minerals can be a dirty process, ravaging the environment, and leading to human rights abuses.
The UN is helping to ensure that developing countries benefit from clean energy. In Madagascar, a promising initiative is showing the potential of clean electrification to change lives.
According to energy industry experts, we’re in the middle of a massive expansion of renewable energy sources, and it’s likely to continue. At the UN climate conference in Dubai at the end of last year, governments committed to tripling global capacity by 2030, and the International Energy Agency, for one, is bullish about that goal being achieved.
But will developing countries benefit?
Two top officials underlined the UN’s commitment to Africa’s development during a dialogue with representatives from NGOs, civil society, academic institutions and the private sector, held at UN Headquarters in New York on Friday.
Born in a Tanzanian village with no electricity, Gibson Kawago, decided to start a business producing off-grid clean electricity for communities like his own. His successes led to his appointment as one of the UN Young Leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The UN weather agency issued an urgent appeal on Tuesday for governments everywhere to switch to cleaner forms of energy, such as solar, wind and hydro-electric power.
Energy was the main theme of COP26 on Thursday, with a particular focus on ending the world’s reliance on coal.
However, to achieve the UN’s aim of achieving clean and reliable access to energy for all by 2030, all countries need to speed up the transition away from all fossil fuel sources, and switch renewable sources.
For millions of villagers in Indonesia’s remote areas, a 12-hour-per-day erratic electricity supply is the norm. With students studying by candlelight at night and health centres not running at full capacity, these communities face an uphill struggle to improve their well-being.
