On the eve of the (virtual) United Nations 75th anniversary event and the Global Goals Week authors presented this year's global civil society report Spotlight on Sustainable Development.
If you missed the virtual launching event you can watch the recording here.
Find the report & further information here.
New York, 18 September
The COVID-19 crisis and the worldwide measures to tackle it have deeply affected communities, societies and economies around the globe. The implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has been put at high risk in many countries. COVID-19 is a global wake-up call for enhanced international cooperation and solidarity.
But calls for “building back better” by just pushing the reset button will not change the game. We need structural changes [...]
By Vicente Paolo Yu, Third World Network
Climate change is intensifying. Record-breaking global temperatures, atmospheric greenhouse gas (especially CO2) concentrations, and rising sea levels and temperatures, as well as increasing ocean acidification, are constantly being reported. Global mean temperature has approximately increased by 1.1°C above the pre-industrial level. Climate change impacts are now undermining and will pose significant constraints on meeting sustainable development and poverty eradication in many developing countries due to the loss and damage [...]
New York, 8 July 2019: “The world is off-track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Most governments have failed to turn the transformational vision of the 2030 Agenda into real transformational policies. Even worse, xenophobia and authoritarianism are on the rise in a growing number of countries.”
“The implementation of the 2030 Agenda is not just a matter of better policies. It requires more holistic and more sweeping shifts in how power is vested, including through institutional and governance [...]
By Indrajit Bose, Third World Network (TWN)
Climate change is increasingly making its impact felt worldwide. Everyone is suffering, but the poor in the developing world is bearing the brunt of the impacts. It is not fair that those who did not contribute to the problem of climate change are suffering the most, and sometimes even paying with their lives. The developed world, historically responsible for causing climate change must own responsibility and fulfil longstanding commitments to reduce emissions and [...]
By Marina Lent, Global Policy Forum
Fulfillment of the vision laid out in the 2030 Agenda means creating conditions in the inextricably related economic, environmental and social dimensions of life that enable people to individually and collectively create and enjoy their vision of a good life in a manner that also permits the flourishing of the planet.
Individual and collective visions of a good life will occasionally conflict or even preclude the realization of one over another. But the essence [...]
By Tessa Khan, Climate Litigation Network
It is difficult to overstate the threat that climate change poses to sustainable development, equality and the enjoyment of human rights. Rising global temperatures have already contributed to the degradation of natural resources that millions of people rely on for their food security, livelihood and well-being. They have driven increasingly severe droughts, floods, wildfires and super-storms. Climate change increased the intensity of Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest typhoon in recorded history, which resulted in the [...]
By Tamar Lawrence-Samuel with Rachel Rose Jackson, Corporate Accountability International, and Nathan Thanki, Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice
The influence of transnational corporations is the greatest obstacle to achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, which commits states to “take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. For too long, transnational corporations have relied on their disproportionate economic and political might, and used both subtle and overt methods to undermine UN initiatives to achieve global justice and sustainability [...]
The Paris Agreement does not include any reference to a global carbon budget as a basis for targets and effort sharing. However, more than 110 governments put forward voluntary pledges in 2015 in the form of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). A report titled Fair Shares: A Civil Society Equity Review of INDCs was released in October 2015 that focused on the mitigation pledges of governments and how these measure up to their respective fair shares. It was endorsed by [...]
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