UN urges massive investment in clean and available energy

United Nations, United States: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday urged world leaders and companies to invest heavily in clean energy to combat climate change and make light reach the poorest.

“We have a double duty: to end energy poverty and reduce climate change,” Guterres said on the occasion of the high-level dialogue on energy organized on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, the first dedicated to the sector in 40 years. .

The solution is clean energy, according to the United Nations’ highest authority.

More than 35 countries, organizations and companies, such as TotalEnergies, Schneider Electric and Google, on Friday detailed their roadmaps in the field, in so-called “energy agreements”. The total announced commitments amounted to more than 400 billion dollars.

These commitments, which were often well known, are part of developing technologies such as hydrogen, increasing access to electricity or developing non-polluting cooking methods in emerging countries.

Many countries such as Malawi or Denmark have emphasized providing people in less developed regions with clean energy for cooking so that they can forgo coal or kerosene.

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According to the United Nations, about 760 million people in the world still do not have access to electricity and about 2.6 billion cannot cook with clean energy.

Energy emissions account for 75% of all greenhouse gases.

Oil subsidy cut

The Secretary-General of the United Nations noted that “in the past year, the share of renewable energy in the world’s electricity production has risen to 29%.” “Solar PV is the cheapest source of energy in most countries,” he said.

But progress is still slow. He insisted that by 2025, the number of people without electricity should be halved and clean cooking solutions provided to a billion people.

Guterres called for doubling the use of solar and wind energy by 4 by 2030 and stopping the construction of coal plants from this year.

A study published by the International Monetary Fund, on Friday, reported that direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuels rose to $5.9 trillion in the world in 2020, equivalent to 6.8% of global GDP.

For IMF economists, these subsidies “generate excessive consumption of fossil fuels”.

Prices should be set to “fully” reflect the true costs of these fossil fuels, but also environmental costs, recommended Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director.

Increasing fuel costs “is obviously very difficult,” the person in charge admitted. “Doing nothing will lead to much bigger problems,” he warned.

EC