Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - Episode 103

As the world launches into COP29 in Azerbaijan, this week, it may be useful for us to review some of the sustainability metrics that the world has agreed to as a foundation for peace, prosperity - and a world devoid of climate change.

There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) in total, though not all of them deal with climate. The ones that do, though, provide us a bit of a report card on how we're doing, as a globe, in combating climate change. In this episode, Paul explains a bit more as to what these SDGs represent - and highlights some of the findings from the UN's latest report card.

For further research:

"The 17 Goals" - United Nations

"2024 Progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals" - United Nations

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Transcript

This is Eight Minute Climate Fix – a podcast helping you understand the energy and climate challenge in just a few minutes – I’m your host, Paul Schuster.

The United Nations is something of our global referee for climate action. Not only does it host the annual Conference of Parties, or COP, but it orchestrates the big, global arrangements  such as the Paris Agreement. 

That Paris Agreement was the big headline coming out of the COP that year – and has guided global action toward climate ever since. Underpinning it, though, are a set of metrics and goals that the world’s countries have agreed upon as ambitions toward what a strong, sustainable global economy needs to look like. These goals are called the Sustainable Development Goals – or SDGs.

And while not ALL of them deal with climate– the ones that do have guided our collective action toward how we can tackle a changing climate.

Today, let’s discuss the SDGs in a bit more detail and give us all a firmer foundation on which to discuss future action.

Eight Minutes – it’s how long it takes the sun’s rays to hit earth, or about 4 minutes longer than my 11 year old can last on a Halloween candy sugar high before crashing and falling asleep!

Let’s get it on.

The Sustainable Development Goals provide a shared set of ambitions for achieving peace and prosperity – both today and into the future. Or, so the UN tells us!

Kidding aside, the SDGs are an extremely important part of the global effort toward equitable sustainability. They form the basis for so much of the planetary commitments being made by UN member states – and as the globe launches into COP29 in Azerbaijan this week, the SDGs will play a huge role in how and where global policy can be affected.

There are 17 SDGs, in total – though not ALL of them are climate related. The objectives of these goals run the gamut from ending poverty to improving health & education to reducing inequality. But climate change (and environmental stewardship writ large) is a big focus of the SDGs as well.

Of the 17 goals, only one specifically targets Climate Action – That of Goal #13. But environmental governance is woven throughout a number of other SDGs, as well, including Goal #7 -Affordable and Clean Energy, Goal #11 – Sustainable Cities & Communities, Goal #14- Life Below Water or Goal #15 – Life on Land.

IN many ways, it highlights how pervasive climate change can be on all of the systems that underpin our global lives.

Goal #13, though – the one dedicated specifically to climate change – further focuses on 5 core attributes that UN member nations focus upon. These include strengthening resilience to climate related hazards. Integrating climate change measures into national planning and policy. Improving education and awareness of human influence on the climate. Commit to supporting the needs of developing countries through the operationalization of a Green Climate Fund. And promote capacity building in developing countries toward climate mitigation.

And then – each of those sub-sections – each of them has a series of indicators that can be quantified and measured at a geo-state level to monitor how countries are doing against these goals.

For instance, for Climate Change – and specifically for developing resilience toward climate disasters – the quantification indicators include things such as monitoring the number of deaths due to disasters or ratioing the number of local governments that have implemented a local disaster risk reduction plan.

These indicators are where the rubber meets the road – as they put quantifiable data and measurements against how countries are doing at reaching these SDGs. It’s great that EVERY UN country has agreed to and adopted these SDGs – but the indicators ensure that we’re all holding each other accountable toward progress.

Along those lines, the UN Secretary General releases a yearly report card to show how the globe is doing against those indicators. In particular, the UN has outlined a path forward toward maximizing these SDGs by 2030, and the report offers a lens into what’s going well – and what isn’t.

The 2024 report, which covered ALL of the 17 SDGS, was a bit of a disappointment in that regard. Only 17 percent of the SDGs targets are on track to be achieved. HALF of them show only moderate progress – and a full third have either stalled … or maybe even gone backward a bit.

The report chalks this up to a few things, including lingering challenges related to recovery from the COVID pandemic. And, frankly, the report alludes to a bit of exhaustion on the part of the global community, given the overwhelming challenges as well as the long, marathon-esque effort required to achieve these ambitions.

Climate fared pretty badly, to be honest. The report highlights some good points, such as reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in developed countries. But it also outlined some areas where we’ve regressed as a global community. These include the fact that global emissions hit an all-time high in 2023, public funding for oil & gas went from a COVID induced downturn in 2021 to having more than DOUBLED in 2022. And how ocean acidification is on a rapid rise due to increasing CO2 levels.

And the report highlights concerns on biodiversity. For instance, it calls out how species extinction rates have increased by 12% since 1993.

The world is off-track in achieving its 2030 ambitions, with climate being one of the big sustainability challenges that just isn’t getting enough focus on a global scale.

Digging into the data shows a more nuanced view as to climate action, though. For instance, the number of deaths related to climate related catastrophes has nearly halved since the 2005-2014 timeframe. And 129 separate countries now have some form of adaptation plan in place for disaster risk reduction strategies. 

But 2023 was also the hottest year on record, with the average global temperature now 1.45 degrees Celsius above normal. A number that will likely continue to rise – and blow right through the 1.5 degree Celsius target we had ambitiously stretched for in the Paris Agreement.

Regarding clean energy, the report outlines how 18.7% of the globe’s electricity now comes from renewable sources. BUT … if we exclude biomass from that number because – well – burning trees isn’t REALLY a sustainable solution – then the percentage only comes in around 12 and a half percent. The good news is the the world’s electricity producers are shifting over quickly and judiciously toward cleaner, more renewable resources. The bad news – there is still a LOT of work that needs to be done in the heat and transportation sectors.  Even just simple conservation measures aren’t picking up enough steam in these areas.

There is a lot of work that needs to be done to avoid the worst conditions of climate change. And the SDGs provide us a bit of a foundation for how we’re doing, as a planet, in reaching toward that goal. 

And – well – it’s probably not surprising that we’re doing well in some areas and pretty bad in others. The conversations in Azerbaijan this week and next at COP29 will likely focus on some of these SDGs where we’re NOT doing very well – and how we can harness our collective energy toward doing better.

My kids just had their first term report cards released and I kinda feel like the SDG report is something of a planetary report card on how we’re doing … A very solid C-, if we’re being honest with ourselves. Let’s see whether we can improve upon that.

I’m Paul Schuster – and this has been your Eight Minutes.