COVID-19 intensifies the urgency to expand Sustainable Energy solutions worldwide

COVID-19 intensifies the urgency to expand Sustainable Energy solutions worldwide

90 percent of the planet's population was connected in 2018.. Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Asia and South-eastern Asia are approaching universal access but Sub-Saharan Africa lags behind, accounting for 70 percent of the global deficit.. India has the third largest deficit with 64 million unelectrified people, although its rate of electrification outpaces population growth.. Clean cooking: Almost three billion people remained without access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking, residing mainly in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.. The top 20 countries lacking access to clean cooking accounted for 82 percent of the global population without access between 2014 and 2018.. Most of the growth in renewables has occurred in the electricity sector, thanks to the rapid expansion of wind and solar power that has been enabled by sustained policy support and falling costs.. Achieving SDG target 7.3 for energy efficiency will require the overall pace of improvement to accelerate significantly to around 3 percent a year between 2017 and 2030..