The World Bank has recently released a report, titled Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE) 2018, in which it warned that the world, as a whole, is only about half way towards the adoption of advanced policy frameworks for sustainable energy.
This puts at risk the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal on Energy (SDG7) by 2030 and hinders progress towards the goal of keeping the rise in global temperatures to well below two degrees.
It follows the previous methodology of classifying countries into a green zone of strong performers in the top third, a yellow zone of middling performers, and a red zone of weaker performers in the bottom third.
The latest edition of RISE found that in the last decade the number of countries with strong policy frameworks for sustainable energy has more than tripled since 2010, with a dramatic increase in the uptake of renewable energy and energy efficiency targets.
It showed that from 2010 till 2017, the number of countries with strong policy frameworks for sustainable energy more than tripled from 17 to 59.
Strong performance in renewable energy policies has been distributed across all regions of the world and among different income groups.
The report said that the five countries that made the most progress in their policies in recent years and are from outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) including: the Ivory Coast, UAE, Rwanda, Jordan and Egypt. It also found that the world has seen a huge uptake in sustainable energy policies.
According to the report, it was noted that when the government is concerned with energy policies progress is achieved quickly.
Among the 133 countries in the index, countries where governments are concerned with sustainable energy sources made progress in RISE indicator by more than four percentage points, twice the average of the annual global growth rate.
Countries that have increased their electricity access rates the most since 2010 have also shown a concurrent improvement in electricity access policies. In countries with an electricity access deficit, policymakers are increasingly turning their attention to off-grid solutions to close the gap, the report explained.
This is illustrated by the soaring share of low-access countries adopting measures to support mini-grids and solar home systems from around 15 percent in 2010 to 70 percent in 2017.
In countries that have made progress on sustainable policies, the deteriorating fiscal position of national utilities is putting progress at risk.
Among countries with low access to energy, the number of utilities meeting basic creditworthiness criteria dropped from 63 percent in 2012 to 37 percent in 2016, the report said.
