This 2022 edition of Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report assesses achievements in the global quest for universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy by 2030. At today’s rate of progress, the world is still not on track to achieve the SDG 7 goals by 2030. Advances have been impeded, particularly in the most vulnerable countries and those that were already lagging. Figure ES.1 offers an updated snapshot of the primary indicators.

This edition was prepared as the COVID-19 pandemic and its broad social and economic disruptions entered their third year. Some degree of economic recovery has taken place, but the pace of progress on the SDG 7 target is expected to slow down because of new challenges from evolving COVID variants and an energy crisis provoked by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The report considers the consequences of the evolving pandemic, along with results from global modeling, to determine whether current policy ambitions can meet the SDG 7 targets and to identify the additional actions that may be needed. The report also examines the investments required to achieve the goals. It presents scenarios drawn from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) flagship publication, the World Energy Outlook 2020 (IEA 2021b), and the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) World Energy Transitions Outlook: 1.5°C Pathway (IRENA 2021c).

From the outset of the pandemic, governments mobilized an unprecedented level of fiscal support to manage the impacts of the pandemic on citizens and the global economy. Appropriations of recovery funds in areas relevant to SDG 7 reached USD 710 billion, but 90 percent of that came in the advanced economies. Emerging markets and developing countries, with their much more limited fiscal leeway, mobilized far less. Increasing clean energy and access investments in these regions requires greater support from international actors.
With oil and gas prices spiking in 2021, aggravated by the war in Ukraine, recovery plans in key economies focused heavily on renewables and e"ciency, making the outlook for renewables and energy e"ciency stronger than it was a year ago. The rising uncertainty in global oil and gas markets has placed enormous pressure on net importers to reduce their exposure. How the world gets on track toward meeting SDG 7 depends in part on how governments respond to the economic crisis and the role of recovery packages in shaping a more sustainable future.

The distribution of flows by technology in 2019 is similar to those in 2018 (figure ES.12). Hydropower attracted the bulk of flows (26 percent), followed by solar energy (21 percent) and wind energy (12 percent). Geothermal energy received a little over 3 percent of commitments in 2019. Compared with 2018, the share of wind energy commitments increased by 6 percentage points, while the share of commitments to the other technologies saw a decrease, as commitments increasingly fall into the “multiple/other renewables” category (see note to figure ES.11), reflecting growing interest in energy funds, green bonds, and other government-led programs to support renewables, energy efficiency and electricity access.