ENERGY FUTURES AND CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION: A QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE ASSESSMENT IN THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS PERSPECTIVE

Resumo

The 2030 Agenda – with its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – and the Paris Agreement represent a turning point for Sustainable Development. For the first time, the world’s leaders have developed an integrated sustainable agenda and ratified a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, recognizing that the current development model is not sustainable from an economic, social and environmental standpoint. Sustainable energy, being the driver of social and economic growth, will play a crucial role in the achievement of the 2030 Agenda objectives and for closing the gap to the mitigation targets of 2°C and 1.5°C defined by the Paris Agreement.

This paper aims at showing that SDG 7 – the SDG dedicated to energy – can be considered as an enabling factor for the implementation of the other SDGs, and in particular of SDG 13, the goal on climate action.  This relation is bidirectional, meaning that mitigation of climate change is positively driven by the deployment of sustainable energy services, and that the integration of climate change mitigation strategies into national policies positively contributes to the deployment of sustainable energy solutions. The paper also shows that future energy scenarios, compatible with the above-mentioned ambitious mitigation targets, are in line with the SDG 7 Targets that can benefit from the strong technology innovation that those scenarios will require. The digitalization of the electricity sector through smart meters for demand side management and smart grids for distributed renewable generation is one example of the role of technology innovation toward SDG 7.