Cross-cutting issues of energy

Abstract

Highlights • The energy sector is intertwined with water, food, public health, and gender matters. Hence a nexus perspective increases understanding of these interdependencies, enhancing efficiency, balancing trade-offs, building synergies, and improving governance. Energy helps to achieve secure and equal access to productive resources and inputs, helps to sustain food production systems, and helps to boost investment in rural infrastructure and technology. It also facilitates access to safe drinking water and sanitation, improvement of water quality, and expansion of wastewater treatment. Energy can help reduce death and illness from air, water, and soil pollution and contamination. It can also support women's equal rights to economic and natural resources, enhance use of enabling technology, and help prevent violence against women and girls in public and private places. • The three objectives of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) are closely interwoven into the four nexus areas-water, food, health, and gender. Providing universal access to modern energy services, increasing the share of renewable energy (RE), and improving energy efficiency will greatly influence them. • The SE4All objectives generate multiple nexus opportunities and challenges. Water security may be increased if water-related risks are managed well and contamination risks minimized. Similarly, food security may improve, and RE sources may help decouple food prices from energy prices, while managing production of energy crops. Global health may improve further as efforts focus on reducing air pollution and strengthening health services delivery. Finally, gender equality can be enhanced as time poverty decreases through better energy services and as women participate more actively in the energy value chain. • Although existing data capture part of the nexus approach, improvements are needed in all four sectors to accurately monitor intersectoral impacts, supporting policymakers in developing integrated policies. cHAPTER 6 cROSS-cUT TING ISSUES OF ENERGY relationships early on is of great importance in targeting synergies and forestalling potential tensions. The means by which the SE4All objectives are pursued (policies, regulations, technology, and institutions) will determine the positive and negative impacts on nexus areas. Water requirements will depend on the amount of energy produced and on the technology mix. Improved energy access will raise the energy available for extracting and treating water, but will add pressure on water resources. A higher share of RE in the energy mix may help reduce water intensity in energy, as photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind energy gain share, but global energy supply from water-intensive thermal plants is also expected to grow. Water efficiency should increase as old, inefficient power plants are replaced. Food security will benefit. Access to modern energy services in agriculture helps raise food production, often improving farm income, while the uptake of RE in agrifood systems helps in decoupling agricu...