The SDG 7 review: affordable and clean energy

Session: HLPF 2026 interactive review of SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) and its interlinkages with other SDGs; the third HLPF review of SDG 7
Moderator: Hans Olav Ibrekk (Special Envoy for Climate and Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway)
Panel: Damilola Ogunbiyi (Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy), Francesco La Camera (Director-General, International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA) and Vijay Modi (Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University)
Lead discussant: Diego de León, for the LGBTI stakeholder group, on energy equity and inclusion

The review

The Forum’s second in-depth review took energy. The framing figures, drawn from the SDG Report 2026, cut both ways: global electricity access reached about 92% in 2024 and a billion people have gained clean cooking since 2010, yet roughly 655 million people still lack electricity and about 2 billion rely on polluting cooking fuels. Renewables reached about 18% of final energy consumption, but the gains are concentrated in electricity while heat and transport lag. As moderator Hans Olav Ibrekk put it, the challenge is no longer ambition or targets: it is implementation, finance, infrastructure and inclusion.

Hans Olav Ibrekk, moderator (Norway): “Energy is not only about SDG 7, it is an enabler of virtually every Sustainable Development Goal. Without accelerated progress on SDG 7, progress across the entire 2030 Agenda will remain out of reach.”

Africa furthest behind

The unfinished agenda is increasingly African and increasingly rural. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to the large majority of people without power (over 560 million) and some 970 million without clean cooking. Damilola Ogunbiyi called this a “population trap,” where access rates improve while the absolute numbers barely move as populations grow. She put universal access at roughly $45 billion a year, and clean-cooking access at about $8 billion a year (half of it for sub-Saharan Africa), yet energy investment in Africa was a third lower in 2025 than in 2015, and only about 3% of global clean-energy investment reaches the continent. The recurring bright spot was Mission 300 (World Bank and African Development Bank), backed by 36 African countries, to connect 300 million people by 2030.

Technology is ready; finance is the bottleneck

Francesco La Camera argued that technology cost is no longer the principal barrier: since 2010, solar PV costs have fallen about 89%, offshore wind 71% and battery storage 95%. What lags is finance for the regions that need it most, where international public finance for SDG 7 reached just over $24 billion in 2024 against a far larger need, along with the grids, transmission and system flexibility that a renewables-heavy system requires. Vijay Modi pressed a different measurement point: a household-level access indicator misses the livelihoods (shops, farms, irrigation) that make energy pay for itself, and progress depends on localizing diagnosis and leveraging institutions that already exist.

Damilola Ogunbiyi, SEforALL & UN-Energy: “We have all the technology now, at least in renewables, to connect the people who don’t have access to electricity. What we don’t have is enough innovation in the financing tools we need to make this happen.”

Inclusion, and what gets measured

“Inclusive” was the word the panel heard most from the floor, and two interventions gave it teeth. The Women’s Major Group noted that SDG 7 is one of the few goals with no gender-specific indicator (and what is not measured is not acted upon), even as women bear a disproportionate share of energy poverty and the health burden of polluting fuels. Lead discussant Diego de León, for the LGBTI stakeholder group, argued that energy access is also about dignity and safety, and that a just transition fails if it lowers emissions while reproducing exclusion. More than 50 member states and major groups intervened; clean cooking, grids and concessional finance ran through nearly every statement.

Why it matters for the SDGs

SDG 7 is an enabler of nearly every other goal: health (SDG 3), food (SDG 2), gender (SDG 5), industry (SDG 9), cities (SDG 11) and climate (SDG 13). Like the SDG 6 review before it, the debate ran straight to finance and SDG 17. The measurement angle SDGCounting watches is that the review turned as much on what counts, the missing gender indicator and a household indicator that overlooks livelihoods, as on the megawatts. One tension went largely unspoken: the moderator closed by noting how few delegates addressed transitioning away from fossil fuels, even as La Camera called the shift to renewables “unstoppable” and pointed to a “35 by 35” push (35% renewables by 2035) with the COP presidency. COP 31 later in 2026 is the next test.

Francesco La Camera, IRENA: “The market has made its choice, so the energy transition will happen. The only thing governments can do is make this transition benefit everyone equally.”

Watch & read

UN Web TV, recording of the HLPF 2026 2nd meeting (7 July 2026).
Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report 2026 (IEA, IRENA, UNSD, World Bank, WHO), our brief on the custodian report behind the review’s figures.
The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026, the wider stocktake launched the same week.
The opening & the SDG 6 review, the 1st meeting earlier the same day.
Full HLPF 2026 coverage · HLPF 2026, official site.

Quotations are lightly edited from an automated (Otter.ai) transcript of the UN Web TV recording and should be read as close paraphrase; names and titles were reconciled to public records and reflect roles at the time.