COVID-19 response
“We need to turn the recovery into a real opportunity to do things right for the future.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a tremendous shock to the global energy system, and threatens our collective efforts towards achieving SDG 7. Yet, despite the current challenges and uncertainty, governments must maintain the global momentum towards the clean energy transformation we need, including by building on existing Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement. Climate change remains the biggest threat to humanity over the long term, and slowing down progress on the clean energy transition now would severely jeopardise our fight against climate change.
In addition, energy is strongly interlinked with progress on other Sustainable Development Goals. Many of those goals will also be in jeopardy without increased access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services – especially the ones related to poverty eradication, gender equality, food security, health, education, clean water and sanitation, jobs, innovation, and transport.
Energy and COVID-19: Featured resources
‘Stronger response’ key, to build a safer and more stable future: Guterres
UN chief António Guterres is calling for greater unity and solidarity to defeat COVID-19 and build a better world in the wake of the global pandemic.
Damilola Ogunbiyi and Riccardo Puliti: Energy access takes center stage in COVID-19 fight, powering Africa’s recovery
COVID-19 is causing unprecedented disruptions around the world, with healthcare systems struggling and billions of people relying on electricity while confined to their homes.
COVID-19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: Regional socio-economic implications and policy priorities
Most Latin American and Caribbean countries have been hit by the Covid-19 crisis in the context of low potential growth, high inequalities and rising social discontent. Policy reactions to the crisis have been bold, but further measures will be needed.
Statement by UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner on the UN Secretary-General’s report on debt and COVID-19
Today, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Spring Meetings close, UNDP commends the decisions of the IMF, the World Bank Group, and the G20 to immediately suspend debt service payments of 76 countries for one year, including 40 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
How to avert the worst development crisis of this century
The first COVID-19 deaths last month in Niger, a landlocked country that ranks 189th on the Human Development Index, marked a new milestone in the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis. A pandemic that spread in a matter of weeks across some of the world’s major advanced and emerging economies, bringing untold human suffering, is now hitting some of the world’s poorest and most fragile, and it could hit them hard.
UNEP Statement on COVID-19
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) stands in solidarity with the billions of people around the world that are suffering the impact of the global pandemic of COVID-19.
We extend our heartfelt gratitude to millions of healthcare professionals and members of the UN family including the World Health Organization (WHO) that are working around the clock to protect us as we face humanity’s biggest crisis since World War II.
Key COP26 climate summit postponed to ‘safeguard lives’
The decision was announced on Wednesday night by the advisory group to the COP26 talks, overseen by the UN climate change body, the UNFCCC, after talks