PROGRESS TOWARDS GOAL 7
The 2026 edition of Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report monitors and assesses progress in the global goal for universal access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy by 2030. Drawing on the latest available data and selected energy scenarios, this annual report is issued jointly by the SDG 7 custodian agencies responsible for collecting and analyzing the data: the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO).
The 2026 report finds that progress on SDG 7 has been real. Since 2000, nearly one billion people have gained access to electricity. Renewables have now overtaken coal as the leading source of global electricity generation, with solar PV deployment outpacing all expectations, and energy efficiency policies are widening in both scope and stringency. Yet on every dimension of SDG 7, the pace of change still falls short of what is required to meet the 2030 targets and keep a 1.5°C pathway within reach. Closing the energy access deficit requires investment to rise significantly, to USD 45 billion per year for electricity access and USD 8 billion per year for clean cooking, sustained through 2030. The road to achieving SDG 7 is challenging, but, crucially, with the costs of renewables and batteries having fallen dramatically and the policy architecture expanding, considerable headway can still be made in the years to 2030, given strong political will and tailored policies.
Credit: NASA/Chris Williams
Universal access
SDG target 7.1 is universal access to affordable, reliable, and modern energy services, with 7.1.1 focusing on access to electricity and 7.1.2 on access to clean cooking solutions. The global rate of access to electricity has stalled at 92 percent, and investment in electricity access remains far below what is needed to achieve universal access by 2030. The latest data show that in 2024, 655 million people lacked electricity, a drop of 11.5 million from the previous year. Achieving the 2030 target will require the pace of progress to more than triple, to 1.35 percent per year. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the center of the global access challenge, home to 86 percent of people without electricity.
Progress on clean cooking follows a similar pattern. In 2024, an estimated 75 percent of the global population relied primarily on clean cooking fuels and technologies. While this represents notable progress since 2010, roughly a quarter of the world's population, around 2.0 billion people, remains dependent on polluting fuels and technologies for cooking. Projections of current trends suggest that 79 percent of the global population will have access to clean cooking by 2030, leaving 1.8 billion people mainly reliant on polluting cooking sources.
Credit: UN Photo/Ilyas Ahmed
Energy efficiency
SDG target 7.3 calls for the rate of global improvement in energy intensity to double by 2030, relative to the 1990 to 2010 average. The 2023 rate of progress in energy intensity fell to 1.5 percent, from 2.4 percent in 2022. This slow progress at the global level masks strong gains in some countries and regions: in the European Union, the United States, the Republic of Korea, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom, strong policy action, increased investment, and changes in consumer behaviour have led to improvements well above the global average rate. Nevertheless, improvements in energy intensity continue to fall short of the 2030 goal, which now requires an average annual improvement of approximately 4.2 percent from 2024 to 2030.
Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten
Renewable energy
SDG Target 7.2 aims to increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. In 2023, renewables accounted for 18 percent of the world's total final energy consumption, including traditional uses of biomass, and 13.4 percent when accounting only for modern renewables. Having doubled their use over the past 15 years, modern renewables continue to expand, growing by 4.8 percent year-on-year. Renewables-based electricity consumption grew 5 percent year-on-year in 2023, and by 79 percent from 2013, underscoring the sector's important role for SDG 7.
As of 2023, renewable sources covered 30 percent of all electricity consumption, over 21 percent of energy use for heat, and 4.3 percent of energy use in transport. Yet the expansion of most renewable technologies, including wind, hydropower, geothermal, bioenergy, concentrated solar power, and marine energy, remains below the levels required to align with a 1.5°C pathway and meet the tripling pledge. Solar PV is the notable exception, with additions of 511 GW in 2025.
International public financial flows
Tracking of SDG 7.a.1 shows that international public financial flows rose in 2024 to USD 24.6 billion, up from USD 24.4 billion in 2023, but still well below the peak of USD 31.4 billion recorded in 2016. This modest increase follows three years of growth, though with development assistance faltering, flows may tighten.
Of particular concern are the reduced flows to least developed countries (LDCs), which stood at USD 3.7 billion in 2024, an 11 percent decrease from 2023 levels. Debt-based instruments remained the main form of public clean energy finance, accounting for 80 percent of total flows in both 2023 and 2024. Against the backdrop of the 2026 energy and economic crises, international public finance for clean energy, particularly impact-based concessional loans and grants, will be vital in upholding the commitment to energy development in developing countries and in ensuring they can equitably benefit from the energy transition worldwide.
Source: Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2026