Covid-19 and the Sustainable Energy Sector

Several entities around the world are trying to understand how Covid-19 pandemic came not only to affect the Sustainable Energy Sector but also how Sustainable Energy can help to overcome this moment.

Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report

Despite accelerated progress over the past decade, the world will fall short of ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy by 2030 unless efforts are scaled up significantly, reveals the new Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the report, significant progress had been made on various aspects of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 prior to the start of the COVID-19 crisis. This includes a notable reduction in the number of people worldwide lacking access to electricity, strong uptake of renewable energy for electricity generation, and improvements in energy efficiency. Despite these advances, global efforts remain insufficient to reach the key targets of SDG 7 by 2030.

Read the key findings here.

Read the full report here.

Post-COVID Recovery: An Agenda for Resilience, Development and Equality

Also IRENA published a new policy report that provides governments with a set of recommendations to align immediate economic recovery efforts with long-term objectives of the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Agenda.

Post-COVID Recovery: An Agenda for Resilience, Development and Equality shows how targeted policy action and investment decisions can accelerate the economic recovery, enact structural change and drive the energy transition away from fossil fuels.

Read the key findings and the full report here.

Webinar COVID-19 and Women’s Energy Entrepreneurship

Also Sustainable Energy for All (SEForALL), the Clean Cooking Alliance, ENERGY, and members of the People-Centered Accelerator are taking an active role to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting women entrepreneurs in the sustainable energy sector. They are seeking to better understand the effects of this global pandemic on our gender and energy community. By understanding current needs, they hope to better craft advocacy efforts for future funding and programming to sustain women’s businesses in the sector.

They organized a “COVID-19 and Women’s Energy Entrepreneurship” webinar, that happen last June 18th, to create a virtual space for entrepreneurs in these unprecedented times to share their stories. Focused on elevating voices from the field, this webinar showcased the experiences of entrepreneurs across the sector, unpacking insights on how this pandemic is impacting their company operations, customers, and communities. As women entrepreneurs are adjusting, bearing additional responsibilities due to the nature of their businesses, it is critical to recognize the invaluable, creative contributions and perspectives that women entrepreneurs can provide in support of energy delivery services during this pandemic.

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