PORTUGAL HOSTS 2018 SE4ALL FORUM By Olawale Akinwumi
The city of Lisbon, capital of Portugal and one of the largest city in the world has been announced as the next host of the UN Sustainable Energy for All Forum.
The Sustainable Energy for All Forum returns in 2018 as the landmark, annual gathering celebrating the great work organizations and individuals all around the world are doing to bring affordable, clean energy to all and power a revolution in energy productivity.
From May 2nd to 3rd, 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal, SE4ALL will create a marketplace for leaders from government, business and civil society to discuss their successes and share ideas for replicating and scaling them.
Recent data on progress, including the launch of the Global Tracking Framework’s fourth edition on the delivery of universal access to modern energy services, doubling the share of renewable energy and doubling the global rate on energy efficiency improvements by 2030 will be unveiled during the two-day event.
According to a statement from SE4ALL, stakeholders are welcomed to “come and learn what’s working and why, who’s succeeding where, how’s it being financed and how we can go further, faster together”.
Sustainable Energy for All empowers leaders to broker partnerships and unlock finance to achieve universal access to sustainable energy, as a contribution to a cleaner, just and prosperous world for all.
In September 2015, the world’s leaders came together to agree on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of those goals, SDG 7, calls for us to secure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030.
Three months later, at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference (COP21), 195 nations negotiated an historic climate agreement—one that declared that not only do we need to hold the increase in the global average temperature to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” but we also need to pursue efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.
Energy is central to social and economic well-being. Yet more than 1 billion people have no access to electricity, while over 3 billion people have to cook with polluting, inefficient fuels such as firewood. And without rapid progress on SDG 7, it will impossible to deliver on other SDGs by 2030.
Energy is also the dominant contributor to climate change.
SE4ALL exists to meet this dual challenge: reducing the carbon intensity of energy while making it available to everyone on the planet.
SE4ALL has three objectives:
- ensure universal access to modern energy services;
- double the global rate of improvement in energy efficiency; and
- double the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
This will require a radical rethink of the way we produce, distribute and consume energy.
Having played a core role in putting universal access to modern energy services at the heart of the SDGs and Paris Agreement, SE4ALL is stepping up to help partners to take rapid, tangible action on those promises.
The Host City
Lisbon, the largest city and capital of Portugal, is also the westernmost capital city in continental Europe. Located along the Atlantic coast and boasting a Subtropical-Mediterranean climate, Lisbon is also one of the most visited European capitals. The city is home to about 27% of Portugal’s population and is the European Union’s 11th most populous urban area.
The Host Country
Portugal lies in the western region of the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Portugal only shares a land border with Spain to its east and north. To the country’s south and west is the Atlantic Ocean. Portugal also lays claim to the Azores Islands, which consists of nine islands in the Atlantic Ocean. The country sits on 92,090 km2, and while the southern region consists of low-lying plains, the northern area is mountainous.