Incorporating Energy Service Companies in Nationally Determined Contributions: The potential of ESCOs for meeting the climate goals in the Paris Agreement

Energy efficiency is central to efforts to make the transition to clean energy, achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and limit the average global temperature increase to 1.5˚C by the turn of the century. Energy efficiency is a cost-effective means of reducing 40% of the carbon emissions required to meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement. As of 2018, there are 789 million people without access to electricity, 2.8 billion without access to clean cooking and more than a billion at high risk due to a lack of access to cooling. As we enter the decade of action, achieving universal access to energy by 2030 and making progress with the energy efficiency that is needed to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) remain uphill tasks. Countries need to ramp up finance, technology and policy commitments to close these gaps.