World Energy Outlook 2017: High-level Workshop on Energy and Development

Background

Attendance is by invitation only.

Energy is the bedrock of modern life, vital to economic development, social equality, health and longevity. Yet, 1.2 billion people still lack access to electricity and 2.7 billion lack access to clean cooking, stifling development and amplifying inequality. Moreover, for many the affordability and reliability of energy remain persistent barriers. The Sustainable Development Goals and declining cost of decentralised solutions provide new impetus for accelerating access to sustainable and modern energy for all. Given this, what will it take to achieve universal energy access by 2030 and what might such a pathway look like?

This year, the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) flagship World Energy Outlook (WEO) will include a special study on energy and development, continuing a near two decade long tradition of the IEA providing a robust and fact-based platform to tackle the energy access deficit. The objectives of the IEA’s WEO-2017 study on Energy and Development include:

• Evaluate the current status of energy access and energy poverty country by country
• Present a strategy for how the energy sector can achieve the goal of energy for all by 2030, and map out the tailored path that different countries might follow, assessing investment needs, energy security and environmental implications
• Explore whether the pathway to universal modern energy access will follow or diverge from the centralised energy sector development path taken by many, and what role the digitalisation of the energy sector might play
• Examine how energy development can unleash productive economic activity and accelerate economic growth
• Consider the broader implications of achieving universal access to modern energy in terms of the nexus between energy, development, water and climate

As part of this study, the IEA is hosting a High-Level Workshop on Energy and Development, to bring together leading experts and decision makers from around the world to provide strategic guidance on the analysis and messages of the IEA’s forthcoming study. To this end, the workshop is organized in two parts. The morning will feature discussion on the current status of energy access around the world, the development pathways being utilized and the pace of progress. Sessions in the afternoon will chart the path to sustainable energy for all by 2030 for households and for productive uses.

The workshop will draw insights on these issues from a range of distinguished experts spanning government, academia, the energy industry and the development community. The meeting will be informal in nature and held under the Chatham House Rule, according to which participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. Each session will be introduced by invited experts and followed by an open roundtable discussion.

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