WEC takes part in developing SE4ALL benchmarking report

 

 

The World Energy Council (WEC) will be contributing to an upcoming report for the United Nations as part of the UN Secretary General's Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative which will kick-start the ongoing monitoring of the initative's goals beyond 2012.

SE4ALL seeks to achieve, by 2030, universal access to modern energy, double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, and double the rate of improvementof energy efficiency.

The initiative recognises that effective monitoring of progress towards its goals is essential to sustaining political commitment over the next 20 years. The Baseline Report will provide an overview of the current state of progress on the three goals, and will set the reference point for tracking future progress.

The WEC will be taking part in the study as a member of the Steering Group supporting the World Bank and the International Energy Agency in the overall drafting. Other Steering Group members include UNEP, IRENA, UNIDO, UNDP, UN-Energy, REN21, plus others.

Christoph Frei, secretary general of the World Energy Council, says being invited to take part in the report marks a "significant step" for the WEC's mission towards meeting the 'trilemma' of energy challenges: energy security, social equity, and environmental impact mitigation.

On behalf of the WEC, he pledges the organisation's support for SE4ALL:

 

 

 

"The World Energy Council commits to offer our capability, experience, and expertise for the in-depth benchmarking of the impact of country energy and climate policies. We commit to providing this as a long-term process, along with the expertise of our network of leaders and practitioners at our regular discussion and decisionmaking forums."

SE4ALL intends the study to address two difficulties it has identified: the need to adapt current energy databases available for tracking progress and how to address the truly global nature of a unified set of energy data required, encompassing both developed and developing countries.

For the Baseline Report, the WEC will be providing input which will draw on its experience from its Energy Sustainability Index, the WEC's annual audit of the impact of country energy and climate policies on individual countries' sustainability performance, as measured by the three aspects of the energy trilemma.

The WEC has also offered to host high-level meetings and the support of its national committees as platforms for discussing SE4ALL's tracking outcomes.

The WEC's involvement in the SE4ALL's Baseline Report follows the WEC's meetings with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in February this year and with the UN SE4ALL's High Level Group in April, where Christoph Frei presented the WEC's offer of support to SE4ALL on behalf of the WEC leadership.

The Baseline Report will be published in January 2013 to mark the end of 2012, the International Year for Sustainable Energy.