About 1.2 billion people – almost the population of India – don’t have access to electricity, 2.8 billion have to rely on wood or other biomass to cook and heat their homes, renewable energy accounts for 18 percent of the global energy mix, and the largest energy savings and greatest expansion of renewables happened in China.
These are just some of the findings of a unique new report by a multi-agency team led by the World Bank and supported by the World Energy Council. The report, compiled by experts from 15 agencies, is the first of a series to monitor progress towards the three objectives of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, launched in 2011 by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The initiative, whose advisory board is co-chaired by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, is mobilizing a global coalition of governments, private sector and civil society to achieve, by 2030, its three objectives of universal access, doubled renewables and doubled energy efficiency improvement. The report puts numbers to those three objectives and identifies what needs to change where and how to do it.
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