16 July 2025 - Presenting the latest data and policy recommendations, UN and international experts have called on governments and stakeholders to urgently prioritize action for universal access to electricity and clean cooking solutions, and energy transition, in a drive to achieve SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy by 2030.
The findings of Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2025 (prepared by IEA, IRENA, UN DESA Statistics Division, the World Bank and WHO) and the 2025 SDG 7 Policy Briefs (prepared by the SDG7 Technical Advisory Group) were presented to governments at a high-level launch event on 16 July 2025, during the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, at the UN in New York.
Based on the latest data showing that, in 2023, 666 million people still lacked electricity, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for 85 per cent of the total, and 2.1 billion people worldwide still relied on polluting cooking fuels, the reports show that we are still far behind in meeting the SDG 7 targets, despite record growth in renewables in recent years. We need to rapidly accelerate a just energy transition that will triple global renewable energy capacity and double the rate of improvement of energy efficiency by 2030, as well as dramatically scale up finance and investments, especially in support of the most vulnerable countries.
The SDG 7 Policy Briefs this year highlight how pursuing synergistic policies can achieve multiple goals. In line with the 2025 HLPF focus, this year’s SDG7 Policy Briefs highlight energy’s vital interlinkages with health (SDG3), gender equality (SDG5), decent work and economic growth (SDG8), and the urgent needs of least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked developing countries (LLDCs), and small island developing States (SIDS).
Read the Tracking SDG7: The Energy Progress Report 2025: https://trackingsdg7.esmap.org/
Read the SDG 7 Policy Briefs 2025: https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2025_policy_briefs_in_support_of_the_high-level_political_forum-071525b.pdf