The alleged purpose of the United Nations’ (“UN”) Sustainable Development Goal 7 (“SDG7”) is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.” The real impacts of its implementation couldn’t be more different. Renewable energy is neither renewable nor sustainable and the SDG7 energy transition is only making the problem of energy poverty worse.
As part of an Unlimited Hangout investigative series titled ‘Sustainable Slavery’, Iain Davis wrote an essay about the impossible energy transformation. Below is the abridged version of his essay. The abridged essay itself is lengthy so we have split it into two parts. This is the first part. We have used the same section titles, in the same order, as the original essay for ease of reference. You can read Davis’ detailed, well-referenced and very informative essay HERE.
SDG7 is one of the goals of Agenda 2030. The target date to achieve this goal is, as you might expect, 2030. The stated aim of SDG7 is to “ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.”
UN documents are couched in fluffy rhetoric. This obscures the unpalatable aspects of “sustainable development.” We must look beyond what has been said to what is being done.
When we look more closely at the UN stakeholder partnership’s efforts to meet SDG7, we find that, far from addressing the problems that restrict access to energy resources, they are actually exacerbating these problems with their so-called sustainable development of energy. For, despite their claims, they make no real commitment to “ensure access to affordable. eliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.”
Affordable Energy?
There is some debate about the precise meaning of “sustainable development.” Many people point to the definition provided in the 1987 Brundtland Report: Our Common Future. But when we look at the effects of the alleged “sustainable development” policies enacted to date by the global political and corporate class, this concept of “sustainable development” amounts to some nice-sounding words, written in impressive-looking reports, and nothing more.
As economies around the world face the worrying impact of soaring energy prices, it appears that the UN is a long way from achieving SDG7. As things stand, the vast majority of people in developed nations can ill afford today’s energy prices. And the prospect of “affordable” energy coming within reach of people in developing nations appears to be extremely remote.
It is doubtful that simply introducing a higher proportion of renewable – green – energy into the existing grid infrastructure will do anything to reduce energy poverty. This is especially true in light of the fact that renewable energy has so far appeared to be both more expensive and less reliable than so-called “dirty energy.”
Read More: UN’s “sustainable” goal for renewable energy is sheer fantasy, if not utter madness
