THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY … · will have to come from mini-grid and isolated off-grid solutions2. Around 45% will come from national grid extension. The IEA

Position Paper

THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY ACCESS IN THE POST-2015 DEVEOPMENT AGENDA TO OVERCOMING RESOURCES AND CLIMATE CONSTRAINT WORLD

Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR)www.iesr.or.id

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This position paper was developed through 3 times of public consultations on energy and climate change. Three times of public consultations were con-ducted in Jakarta : Expert Meeting (21 January 2013), Public Consulta-tions (15 February 2013), and Public Consultations (18 March 2013). The list of organizations that were following the discussions are listed :

IESRDompet Duafa

Mercy CoprsSawit Watch

ICELKRUHA

World Vision IndonesiaThird World Network (TWN)

IIEEKEHATI

GreenpeaceIISD

KiaraIICECCMETIYBULIKABI

ITB

Website : www.iesr.or.id | E-mail : [email protected] | Ph. : +62-(0)21-7992945 | Fax : +62-(0)21-7996160 | Facebook ID : IESR Indonesia | Twitter ID : IESR

energy services for all

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THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY ACCESS IN THE POST-2015 DEVELOPMENT AGENDA TO OVERCOMING RESOURCES AND CLIMATE CONSTRAINT WORLD

Key questions for the Post-2015 development framework

In summary, the Post-2015 development framework must address the following:

• Sustainable development must tackle the causes and impacts of dangerous cli-mate change and environmental degradation. This means implementing low emis-sions development pathways. In particular, all countries must develop and imple-ment plans to maximize the use of renewable energy and energy conservation measures. This is also vital for both national and global energy security.

• Universal access to energy should be a priority. Everyone should have access to at least minimum level of safe, secure, sustainable and affordable energy services. This means that energy must also be affordable for those who live in remote areas, small islands, and for poor communities; ensuring public subsidies to be directed towards this end.

• Fossil fuel subsidies need to be reformed. These subsidies should be shifted to in-vestment in the development of renewable energy and energy conservation mea-sures and to the provision of universal energy access.

• Post-2015 development planning must address long-term development and fac-tor in not only the fast-onset impacts, such as extreme weather events but also the slow-onset impacts of climate change that will affect poor people in particular.

• The Post-2015 development framework must include mechanisms for inclusive participation by stakeholders including civil society and poor communities in its implementation and for monitoring of progress at the international, national and local levels.

• A clear target to achieve the universal access to energy, renewable energy, and energy efficiency, such as those in Sustainable Energy for All Initiative. Supporting the targets, a clear roadmap should be developed with the timeline. The roadmap should be reviewed and evaluated frequently, in accordance to the national circum-stances when the review is taking place.

• A universal energy access fund should be created at the international level by 2015, to accelerate developing countries in achieving their targets of access to energy, renewable energy deployment, and energy efficiency measures, that must



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be accompanied with technology transfer and capacity building. All modalities needed for developing countries to access the fund should be developed includ-ing the governance of the fund and review mechanism of the effectiveness of the fund.

Context: Development in a constrainted resource and climate World

Energy is a prerequisite to development: the growth of energy consumption in a country, most likely will move up the human development index . This means that access to energy services determines the quality of life of men and women living in developing countries. For developing countries, energy consumption is relatively low as well as their GDP.

With low access to energy, developing countries have to face the situation that the supply of existing energy cannot keep up with demand from a growing population, particularly in Asia. Now that climate change has happening throughout the world, developing countries need to find solution to increase their access to energy in a low carbon manner, that will not degrade the quality of the environment.

Climate change raises the crucial question of equal access to resources by the world’s people, including to carbon space. With around 20% of the world’s popula-tion, developed countries’ represent around 80% of global emissions. This means developing countries, which represent the 80% of world population, have only 20% of the carbon space left for their development and to accomodate the needs of a growing population. This presents a dilemma for developing countries. If global emissions grow uncontrollably, the impacts of climate change will be dangerous and threaten future development and even human survival. Developing countries themselves will be the hardest hit by future climate change impacts and with fewer resources to adapt. Thus in their own interest they must find alternative, sustain-able development paths while developed countries have an ethical imperative to reduce their total consumption of resources and their emissions to “free up” more development space.

In addition, the current model of industrial development undertaken since 1800 has resulted in the depletion and degradation of the resources and eco-systems services that are crucial for development and on which poor people in particular depend. As the consequence, the availability of space for the world to grow is limit-ed. For instance, water has been a crucial resources that is needed for many produc-tion processes. But water is also needed for food production and daily consump-tion. Conflict due to water scarcity is increasing as resource and climate constraints intensify. This raises the question what kinds of activities should be prioritized in such a resource-and climate- constrained world.



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Fossil fuel dependency diverts the available resources for sustainable development

In addition, ongoing fossil fuel dependency in all countries, both developed and developing countries, is unsustainable and damaging to their development pros-pects. Fossil fuel dependency in developing countries remains high mainly due to fossil fuel subsidies embedded in the price. These subsidies mean that fossil fu-els are cheaper to consume than other fuel sources (because their environmental costs are not internalised in its price) but in reality the growth of subsidized fossil fuel energy consumption absorbs an increasing amount of the national budget of developing countries. This also means that less public subsidy is available to fund the development of alternative and more sustainable energy sources such assolar, micro-hydro, biomass, wind, etc.

The subsidies in production side, which is widely applied in developed countries, have attracted more companies to invest in the fossil fuels industries than in re-newable energy and energy conservation measures. This of course has favored the growth of fossil fuel industries in developed countries, rather than those of renew-ables and energy conservation.

This dependency on fossil fuels also has implications for energy security, nationally and globally. To secure safe and affordable energy reserves while protecting the climate, interventions on both the supply and demand side, are urgently needed. On the supply side, investment in renewable energy should be prioritized, while on the demand side, energy conservation through energy efficiency measures needs to be promoted.

Energy poverty can only be addressed with investment in small-scale renewables

Today, there are still around 1,3 billion people in the world who are lack of access to electricity, and there are 2,7 billion people who still rely on polluting and inef-ficient stoves and fuels for cooking. More than 95% of people lacking energy live in sub-Saharan Africa or Asia1 . This means current initiatives aimed at energy poverty alleviation have not been effective and greater efforts are required.

In urban and peri-urban areas, reliable electricity grid is extremely important. How-ever, extending electricity grid to rural areas becomes more expensive and ineffi-cient as the consumers are far from the source of power generation.

Analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that decentralized pow-er must be large part of the solution to rural electrification. To reach the UN goal of 1 IEA, World Energy Outlook 2011. Energy for All: Financing access for the poor (WEO 2011)



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Universal Energy Access by 2030 (see below), 55% of all new electricity generated will have to come from mini-grid and isolated off-grid solutions2 . Around 45% will come from national grid extension. The IEA also projects that achieving universal access by 2030 would increase CO2 emissions by between 0.7%3 and 2%4 . Renew-able energy sources such as wind, solar, biogas and micro hydro can play a major role in extending energy access to the poor, while promoting environmental pro-tection, and can be the least cost options in reaching people in rural areas.

The need to tackle energy poverty a priority for any future development agenda is increasingly gaining traction among decision makers. For instance, the UN’s Sus-tainable Energy for All Initiative (SEfA) has 3 objectives by 2030: ensuring universal energy access; doubling the share of renewables in the global energy mix; and dou-bling energy efficiency globally5 . Currently, the initiative has not yet supported with good planning, clear roadmap of implementation, clear source of funding, as well as the disbursement mechanisms that should not hinder developing countries to access the funding.

Key questions for the Post 2015 Development Framework Agenda

In light of the above, an extra effort needs to be undertaken by all countries to ensure that any measures to achieve sustainable development take into account equity issues in relation to access to resources and carbon space. Any Post-2015 Development Framework Agenda must also address the current challenges to de-velopment from climate change impacts, resource depletion and scarcity, environ-mental degradation while also addressing fundamental development priorities, such as universal access to energy, water and food security.

In particular, the development agenda needs to be mindful of both slow-onset and fast-onset of climate change impacts; and both international and country strate-gies need to address development needs over the long not just the short term. The long-term development plans of countries will also need to be reviewed frequently, so that unforeseen and slow-onset climate change impacts can be incorporated into their development scenarios.

Sustainable development must occur within a lower global greenhouse gasemis-sions scenario than the current “business as usual” projections while ensuring that access to affordable, secure, safe and sustainable energy services and the eradi-cation of energy poverty are not held hostage to developed countries’ failure to 2 Ibid, p. 4873 Ibid, p. 4694 In the worst case scenario – using fossil fuels for 100% of electrification and 100% of cooking for the poor – the total increase in emissions would be around 2% of world emissions. Sanchez, T., 2010. The hidden energy crisis : how policies are failing the world’s poor.5 See: http://www.sustainableenergyforall.org/



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reduce their GHG emissions according to international agreements. The develop-ment plan for lower gas emissions, should be reviewed and adjusted frequently that each country will contribute to reduce greenhouse gases emissions in an eq-uitable manner. To support such activities, greenhouse gases inventory should be developed in accordance to the national circumstances specifically to their financial resources.

However, failing to address climate change is the biggest threat to all development planning while sustainable universal energy access can arguably only be achieved with a substantial increase in off-grid, decentralized energy provision to reach the rural poor6 . According to recent research by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All (SEfA) initiative could significantly contribute to reducing GHG emissions if it could be fully implemented7 . IIASA states that achieving these 3 goals would substantially support long-term climate goals 8.

One way to promote the need of shifting investment would be by reforming the existing fossil fuel subsidies, led by developed countries at the production side, and ensuring the public subsidy to be redirected towards renewable energy sources and energy conservation measures.

The role of stakeholders and an inclusive, participatory approach is crucial the implementation of Post 2015 Development Framework Agenda. There should be a space at both the international, national and local level for governments and CSOs to review the implementation of the Post-2015 Development, and to discuss any suggestions on how to enhance it.

Clear indicators are needed in order to review the development framework agenda, as well as detailed implementation plan, including the role of civil society to monitor the implementation of the plans. Accountability should be enhanced by increasing the access to information for all implementation plans.

Ensuring the transformation low carban-based and equitable energy for sustainable development post-2015 requires huge financial support. Therefore an Universal Energy Access Fund is needed to strengthen and acclearate action taken by 6 In any case, on the worst case scenario of using fossil fuels for 100% of electrification and 100% of cooking for the poor, the total increase in emissions would be around only 2% of world emissions. See Sanchez, T., 2010. The hidden energy crisis : how policies are failing the world’s poor.7 Joeri Rogelj, David L. McCollum, Keywan Riahi. The UN’s ‘Sustainable Energy for All’ initiative is compatible with a warming limit of 2 °C. Nature Climate Change, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE18068 “Using a broad range of scenarios, the researchers found that if all the objectives were met, the likelihood of keeping temperature rise below 2°C would be more than 66%.¬ If only the renewable energy goal is met, chances of keeping temperatures below 2°C would range from 40 to 90%, while achieving just the energy efficiency goal would improve the chances to between 60 and 90% [....] The researchers note that the likeli-hood of reaching climate targets within the scenarios depended on a variety of other factors, including future energy demand growth, economic growth, and technological innovation.” “UN Sustainable Energy Initiative Could Put World On a Path to Climate Targets”, Science Daily, 24 February 2013



developing countries to increase access to energy level, renewable energy deploy-ment, and energy efficiency measures. This fund should be created in international level by 2015 together with all modalities needed for developing countries to ac-cess the fund, the governance of the fund and review mechanism of the effective-ness of the fund. The fund should be accompanied with actions led by developed countries to accelarate technology transfer and capacity building for developing countries through bilateral and multilateral channels.

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THE IMPORTANCE OF SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ENERGY … · will have to come from mini-grid and isolated off-grid solutions2. Around 45% will come from national grid extension. The IEA