Читать книгу Derecho de la energía y el clean energy package - Elisenda Malaret García - Страница 37

The access to modern energy services is one of the key issues of the energy sector. Not only overcoming dependence on fossil fuels but the more complex objective of combatting energy poverty. Where there is energy poverty there is a clear lack of modern technologies for energy services. The right to energy as the right to access to modern energy services has been widely discussed and enshrined in international law. First in 1986 with the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Report)14 then with the UN General Assembly’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), published in 2000 Millennium Declaration15, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also generated within the General Assembly in Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development16.

Consequently, international law seems to have enshrined this principle among those of soft law ready to be converted into customary law. But can we today speak of a right to access to energy services as a fourth generation right that arose as a specification of other rights? The answer should say yes and the literature on the subject helps us to understand why.

It has been shown such a strong interconnection between energy poverty and social relations17. Today more than ever before, our society has faced anomalous situations such as the health emergency and an interruption of contacts and social relations. If on one hand there has been a significant drop in energy demand and production, on the other hand the considerable increased use of technological tools has opened our eyes to the rising process of digitalization of services and the inevitable need to ensure the right to access to energy services in order to empower the right to social relations translated online by now. It would seem fair to crystallise the right to access to modern energy services as a genuine right which must guarantee the full enjoyment of complementary rights such as the right to social relations, to access to the Internet and the more general right to free expression of thought, especially online.

Never as today, the right to access to modern energy services and its enhancement are one of the main objectives not only for the achievement of Goal 7 established in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development but above all to provide answers to the new problems caused by the health emergency: constant energy access for clinical and health services, keeping consumers connected and ensuring reliable and uninterrupted energy transmission18.