What Is It?
This is what most people think of when you say sustainability, given the focus on renewable energy, and while this is an important part of sustainability, it is very important to remember that it is only one pillar of sustainability. However, it is a very interesting thing to look at, and of course, there is a good reason why so many but looking at it; it’s very important for sustainability on a large scale. In reality, the other things can only be impactful when we have a substitute for oil.
You might think that because everyone is talking about renewable energy and diversification from fossil fuels, that we have made it a plausible solution. Unfortunately, however, impressive progress in electrification has slowed due to the challenge of reaching a lot of people. In 2020, there were 733 million people living without electricity. While this number is significantly less than the 1.2 billion in 2010, it is still nowhere close to where we need to be. In fact, based on current trends in 2030, 679 million people will still be living without electricity, which while less than our current number, is not proof of much progress since 2020. To achieve the global climate goal, progress in making energy more efficient needs to speed up massively. In fact, it needs to increase from 1.9%, around where it is now, to 3.2% in 2030.
I think the lack of sustainability in energy is a little bit hard to imagine, because we are surrounded by industry, innovation, and enterprise. However, 2.4 billion people (nearly a third of the world’s entire population) still use in efficient and polluting cooking systems. Of course, these aren’t just inefficient stoves or low-income kitchens, these are wooden pots over a fire. The issue with the economic growth of the world has seen in past decades is that the income gap grows so significant that we cannot imagine what is going on in the parts of the world that we have no connection to, and will never see. Clearly, despite what we see around us, this is still a big issue, and just because more people are talking about it, and more people are doing things with it, doesn’t mean we can just forget about it, which is something that we need to wrap our heads around. And we can also say that what we see around us, so much more advanced, is completely renewable or sustainable. There is no country in the world, that is 100% on track to meeting the goal, some cities, especially in heavenly developed places, like the UAE, have specifically ‘green’ cities. However, when taking an aggregate of the country, one city is not enough to make a massive difference globally, though it is a giant step forward. It’s likely that the city you’re living in for example, in Hong Kong, is largely not sustainable. Even if you don’t have a car, or if you see solar panels everywhere, reliance on oil is so deep and intrinsic that, unfortunately, it’s about reducing said dependency, rather than taking it out completely.
How Does It Relate to Sustainability?
I’m not saying this to be depressing, of course. Our progress has been significant and there is a reason you hear about it all the time. I think it’s quite self-explanatory why renewable energy and energy efficiency is so important in the context of sustainability, but it boils down to the root of climate change, which is fossil fuels. We are taught about this from young age and schools, but, many people, especially of lower, incomes, or not. Just because we have knowledge on something does not mean we can assume that other people do, and will do something about it.
The UN is doing some thing about it. This SDG is about making sure that everyone, first of all, has electricity - we focus on sustainable energy, but some countries and people don’t have any energy (comparatively), so how can we expect them to focus on higher cost solutions, when we aren’t doing that ourselves? Then, the UN is focusing on sustainable energy for those who can afford it. Again, the key is market segmentation to maximize impact.
I believe that renewable and efficient energy is the end all be all of sustainability. Yes, that sounds very dramatic; I just think that it will be hard for any other policy, or implementation, to make a difference, if we still rely, in any way, oil and gas. I believe this is a shared opinion, which explains all the policies made, not only encourage investment and innovation in renewable energy, but also on negative enforcement – in terms of banning oil, for example, embargoes. To put this into context, we have to think about how difficult it is, economically, to deal with these bans, tariffs, and quotas on oil. Your entire supply chain has been destroyed, and while you might agree with the reasoning, it doesn’t justify your livelihood being at risk, in your mind. The greater good could never really come above the good of your family and loved ones. Every part of your production process has been shattered. Now think about the sacrifices made by people passing the laws and policies - they give up any kind of popularity to do so. This is, obviously, not to say that they should not pass those laws, puts into perspective how important people classify diversification from oil is. If they think it’s worth it to become unpopular and cause such large, economic crisis, then it is clearly integral to creating a sustainable future.
What Can You Do?
This is one of those aspects of sustainability that is not very actionable for the average citizen. We can’t make a big impact in terms of setting up solar panels or building wind turbines.
Look Inwards
Of course, the obvious one is do not do things like leaving your lights on when you leave the room, or anything else that is a frivolous use of electricity. You might think that it doesn’t matter. If you leave your lights on - it’s just one room in one house and you are just one person. However, the culture of not caring about what we do individually is what got us into this mess, so not perpetuating that further will go a long way.
Look Outwards
This UNSDG is one of those high level ones that feel very far away. But remember, we can always do something!
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