Researchers propose creation of 'Mission Energy Access' programme to end energy poverty

New Delhi: A team of researchers from across the globe has proposed the creation of a new Mission Energy Access programme to support the global goal of ending energy poverty by 2030.

The team includes researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi; International Energy Agency, Paris; University College London; Sustainable Energy for All, Vienna and the United Nations Development Programme, USA.

In a paper titled “Mission Energy Access for a Just and Sustainable Future for All” published in the reputed journal Nature Energy, the authors noted that despite efforts to enhance energy access, there were about 675 million people worldwide who had no access to electricity and about 2.3 billion people who had no access to clean cooking facilities in 2021.

“A mission-mode approach to enhance energy access is needed urgently, given the persistent gap between the aspiration to ensure universal energy access by 2030 and the efforts to deliver on this goal,” said Ambuj Sagar, Professor at the School of Public Policy, IIT Delhi.

“By greatly enhancing the development of innovative and affordable solutions for enabling access to clean and modern energy and its productive uses and the acceleration of large-scale deployment of these solutions, such a Mission would help deliver a triple dividend of increasing energy access, enhancing social and economic benefits, and advancing climate goals,” Sagar said.

The researchers have noted that in the absence of additional efforts and measures, as many as 660 million people (mostly in the least-developed countries and in sub-Saharan Africa) will remain without access to electricity, and 1.9 billion people will still be dependent on polluting fuels and technologies (mostly biomass used in traditional cookstoves) for cooking in 2030.

The authors termed this a betrayal of the global commitment to ending energy poverty by 2030 and said the Mission Energy Access programme is urgently required now to accelerate our efforts to ensure universal energy access by 2030.

The researchers have noted that a successful Mission Energy Access would help to deliver a triple dividend of increasing energy access, enhancing social and economic benefits, and advancing climate goals.

“To achieve this objective, Mission Energy Access would need both to greatly enhance the development of innovative and affordable solutions for enabling access to clean and modern energy and its productive uses and to drive the accelerated large-scale deployment of these solutions,” the paper said.

“This, in turn, will require not just strengthening innovation relating to clean energy access but also other activities that support these clean-energy-access programmes. This will require paying attention to the interplay of the technology, finance, policy and socio-economic sectors,” it said.