Energy Progress Report 2025 Warns SDG 7 Targets at Risk Without Urgent Action

Despite notable progress in expanding energy access and renewable capacity, the 2025 edition of the “Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report” reveals that the world is not on track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 targets by 2030. Released today ahead of its formal presentation at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in New York on 16 July 2025, the report highlights incremental advances but underscores persistent regional disparities, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

The report, co-produced by a coalition of SDG 7 custodian agencies—IEA, IRENA, UNSD, World Bank, and WHO—tracks global efforts toward ensuring universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030. While almost 92% of the world’s population now has basic access to electricity, more than 666 million people remain without it, and 2.1 billion people still rely on polluting fuels for cooking, raising serious alarms.

Electricity Access: Steady Gains, Stark Inequities

Since 2015, an estimated 310 million people have gained access to electricity, with the most rapid recent gains seen in Central and Southern Asia, where the electricity access deficit has declined from 414 million (2010) to just 27 million (2023).

However, progress remains uneven. Eighteen of the top 20 countries with the largest electricity access deficits in 2023 are in sub-Saharan Africa, which now accounts for 85% of the global population without electricity access. Fragile states, remote regions, and low-income populations continue to face the steepest challenges, exacerbated by poor infrastructure and weak governance.

Clean Cooking: The Forgotten Energy Frontier

Progress on clean cooking remains alarmingly slow. As of 2023, 74% of the world’s population had access to clean fuels and technologies for cooking, up from 64% in 2015, but that still leaves 2.1 billion people—mainly in rural areas—dependent on firewood, charcoal, or kerosene.

The COVID-19 pandemic, global energy price shocks, and debt burdens have all hindered advancements in clean cooking. If current trends continue, only 78% of the global population will have access to clean cooking by 2030, falling far short of universal access goals.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the situation is deteriorating, with the number of people without access growing by 14 million people annually, leaving four out of five families reliant on hazardous fuels. This growing energy poverty contributes to poor health outcomes, deforestation, and gender inequality, particularly affecting women and children.

Distributed Renewables: A Scalable Solution for Remote Areas

The report highlights the promise of distributed renewable energy systems, such as off-grid solar and mini-grids, in reaching remote and marginalized communities. These technologies are cost-effective, quickly deployable, and essential for closing the electricity and clean cooking access gaps.

Innovations like household biogas digesters and mini-grid-enabled electric cooking solutions offer localized clean energy alternatives, especially in rural contexts where centralized grid expansion is cost-prohibitive.

Renewable Energy Deployment: Progress with a Caveat

Global installed renewable energy capacity per capita hit a new high of 478 watts in 2023, representing 13% growth over the previous year. In developing countries alone, the capacity rose to 341 watts per capita, more than doubling since 2015 (155 watts).

Yet disparities remain glaring. Least developed countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to lag far behind, with an average of only 40 watts per capita, compared to over 1100 watts in developed nations. While renewables deployment is accelerating globally, it is still not on pace to meet climate targets or sustainable development goals.

Energy Efficiency: Needs Sharper Acceleration

Energy efficiency, a key pillar of SDG 7, showed signs of recovery after a major slowdown in 2021. Primary energy intensity—a measure of energy used per unit of economic output—improved by 2.1% in 2022, a fourfold increase from the dismal 0.5% in 2021.

However, to achieve SDG 7.3, energy intensity must improve by 4% annually—a target that requires both policy reforms and technological advancements across high-energy-use sectors such as industry, transportation, and buildings.

International Financial Flows: Recovering but Insufficient

Global public financial flows supporting clean energy in developing countries rose to US$ 21.6 billion in 2023, a 27% increase from 2022. But this amount remains well below the 2016 peak of US$ 28.4 billion, and funding remains concentrated among a few countries.

In fact, only two sub-Saharan African nations were among the top five recipients of these funds in 2023. Furthermore, 83% of financing was debt-based, while grants comprised just 9.8%, limiting flexibility for poorer nations.

The report emphasizes that current financial flows are inadequate to bridge access and equity gaps and calls for a paradigm shift in financing—including greater deployment of grants, concessional lending, and risk mitigation mechanisms.

The Road Ahead: Prioritizing Equity and Urgency

The report concludes with a strong call to action: to accelerate access and avoid regression, the global community must strengthen public-private collaboration, reform lending frameworks, and expand support for national energy planning in low-income countries.

Key recommendations include:

• Reforming multilateral and bilateral finance institutions to unlock public capital.

• Increasing donor risk tolerance to attract private investment.

• Scaling concessional finance and grant-based assistance.

• Prioritizing sub-Saharan Africa through targeted energy access programs.

As world leaders prepare to gather in New York this July, the Energy Progress Report 2025 offers a critical benchmark of global progress—and shortcomings—in the pursuit of SDG 7. Unless urgent, targeted action is taken, the goal of ensuring sustainable energy for all by 2030 may remain out of reach for the most vulnerable populations.