Energy and infrastructures
To ensure everyone has access to reliable, sustainable and modern energy systems is a challenge for all countries worldwide with impacts on the life of every individual and which directly involves companies too.
It is also one of the main objectives (Sustainable Development Goals) defined by the U.N. whereby Snam has declared its commitment to sustainable development of the economy and society in the future.
20% of the world’s population does not have access to electricity and an even greater percentage has to contend with repeated interruptions in supply.
2.7 billion people, around 40% of the global population, still uses traditional biomass fuels for cooking.
To guarantee access to energy the economic and physical barriers influencing the possibilities of satisfying requirements in a globalised world, where there are serious imbalances between different areas, need to be broken down.
If the level of development of a country continues to remain low while the cost of energy is high, the population will continue to be denied access to energy, irrespective of the stock of its resources and the energy diversification of the country.
Accessibility is therefore not a sufficient condition to guarantee the development of economic and social activities, which rather also depend on regular supplies, managed through efficient and stable distribution networks.
Over the next 25 years around 90% of requirements for more energy will come from non-OECD members or other countries not counted as western economies.
Looking ahead, the extent of the reliability and modernity of energy systems will be influenced by population growth and per capita expenditure in India, in Sub-Saharan Africa and in other developing countries, following the ever increasing demand for fundamental services for modern societies, such as electricity, transportation and information technology.
All of this leads to the need to create quality, reliable, sustainable and resilient infrastructures, including regional and cross-border infrastructures, which is not by chance another of the most significant Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) promoted by the U.N.
At global level, 40% of electricity still comes from coal and around the same percentage of CO2 is due to its use.
Satisfying this increasing demand for energy poses another equally important question: environmental stability. In many areas of the world they still use low-quality fuels, which are a primary source of domestic pollution, such as coal, an historically vital material for industrialisation and the improvement of human well-being, or biomass, the cause of the deforestation of vast green areas of the planet.
In an era of increasing demographics and environmental decline, every type of sustainable energy should be modern, but not all forms of modern energy are sustainable.
GRI-G4:1