7. Affordable and Clean Energy

by Francesca Menichini

"Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all"

WHAT DOES IT MEAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT?

Sustainability is a development that satisfies the needs of the present without compromising the capacity of future generations, guaranteeing the balance between economic growth, care for the environment and social well-being.

SOCIAL: development of people, communities and cultures and fairly-distributed quality of life.

ECONOMIC: equal economic growth, investment and an equal distribution of the economic resources

ENVIRONMENTAL: environmental conservation, investment in renewable energies, saving water.

PROGRESS OF GOAL 7 IN 2018

From 2000 to 2016, the percentage of the global population with access to electricity reached 87 per cent.
In the least developed countries, the proportion of people with access to electricity doubled between 2000 and 2016.
In 2016, 3 billion of people were still cooking with polluting fuel and oven combinations.
The share of renewables in final energy utilization increased modestly, reaching 17.5 per cent in 2015.
Global energy intensity decreased by 2.8 per cent from 2014 to 2015.

INITIATIVES

Tourism can:

help to reduce greenhouse gases: worldwide tourism accounted for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions from 2009 to 2013, new research finds, making the sector a bigger polluter than the construction industry.
mitigate climate change: tourism has a broad nature and various components which all contribute to a different extent to climate change (CO2, heating, air-conditioning, construction, etc.)

GLOBAL HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION

Tourists from around the world visit Ladakh, situated in the Indian Himalayas, to contemplate, explore its mountain valleys and its traditional heritage. Its inhabitants have no other option to light their houses with kerosene lamps, which emitted toxic fumes and caused health problems.

In 2013, the Global Himalayan Expedition initiative (GHE) was founded to expand access to electricity for the area’s remote Himalayan communities by supporting tourism as a model to provide their unelectrified villages with renewable energy access.

The GHE offers a life changing experience for visitors and local indigenous communities through the tourists opportunity to travel to these remote reaches, with the creation of an itinerary focused around adventure and social impact, the sponsorship through social media and lastly the creation of a life long impact to these communities.

To date, GHE has conducted 37 expeditions which have provided 53 villages with access to electricity, improving the lives of at least 20,000 people. The initiative has formed partnerships with several global enterprises, which send their employees to serve as part of leadership expeditions and extend electricity to the area’s villages.

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