The adoption of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 marked a new level of political recognition of the important link between energy and development. For the first time, universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy was included as a target, collectively known as Sustainable Development Goal 7, or SDG 7. The IEA is one of five lead custodian agencies for tracking SDG 7 and is responsible for SDG 7.2 on renewable energy and SDG 7.3 on energy efficiency while also tracking SDG 7.1 on energy access.

Achieving these goals is central to the IEA’s scenarios. They are canonised in the IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario (NZE) which outlines a pathway to limit global warming to 1.5 °C. The NZE Scenario incorporates key energy-related Sustainable Development Goals for energy access for all and improved air quality, while considering the need to rely on available, affordable technologies to reach universal access by 2030. The NZE Scenario goes on to reach global net zero GHG emissions by 2050, with advanced economies reaching net zero earlier to allow more time for developing regions to address hard to abate emissions.

Read on to explore the IEA's latest data and analysis on Sustainable Development Goals 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3.

After the number of people in the world without access to electricity increased for the first time in decades in 2022, progress resumed in 2023 due in part to increased speed of new grid connections and the expansion of solar home systems (SHS), especially in sub-Saharan Africa. This confirms our estimates from last year and in 2023 leaves around 750 million people without access to electricity, of which more than 80% are located in Africa.

In 2023, more than 2 billion people globally still lacked access to clean cooking, of which about 95% live in developing Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa almost equally split, and the remainder in Latin America. Progress toward universal clean cooking access slowed from 2019-2022, as rising energy costs and reduced household incomes led many to revert to traditional fuels. While well-funded policies in places like the People’s Republic of China (hereafter “China”) and India have supported millions throughout the energy crisis, sub-Saharan Africa continued to lag significantly behind. Under current policies, the world is far from being on track to achieve universal access by 2030. Efforts need to accelerate dramatically. In May 2024, the IEA hosted the first international summit on clean cooking in Africa, bringing together diverse stakeholders and eliciting a commitment of USD 2.2 billion to tackle the clean cooking gap in Africa.

According to official SDG 7.2 data, in 2021, the share of modern renewables in total final energy consumption, which includes all uses of renewable energy with the exception of the traditional use of solid biomass, remained at 12.5% as in the previous year. This stagnation was largely due to lower energy demand due to pandemic restrictions and the global energy crisis. IEA data for 2022 show that renewable power has reached another record level, with supportive policies in many countries that aimed to increase energy security during the energy crisis. While estimates suggest continued progress in 2023, more efforts are needed to reach the targets in SDG 7.2, particularly on renewable heating and fuels.

The rate of improvement in energy intensity declined to 0.8 percent in 2021 which is well below the last decade’s average rate of improvement and marks the second year in a row of rates below 1 percent. This was largely because of economic recovery from a world weakened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Annual improvement needs to reach 3.8 percent on average from now to be on track to SDG 7 targets. Prioritising energy efficiency in policy and investment can help the world achieve this target, promote economic development, improve health and wellbeing, and ensure access to clean energy.