POVERTY RESPONSE ‘NOT AMBITIOUS ENOUGH’
The global response to realizing poverty and environmental goals agreed by world leaders in 2015 has not been “ambitious enough” according to the UN Secretary General.
In his latest report on the progress towards meeting the targets of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDG, the UN chief António Guterres said that while a “wealth of action” had been taken by governments across the world “the most vulnerable people and countries continue to suffer the most.”
The 17 SDG commit countries to mobilize efforts to end all forms of poverty, fight inequalities and tackle climate change. Read more here about the goals.
The report tracks progress across 17 goals in the UN’s 193 Member States and largely takes a global view, however while many trends regarding the SDG are common to all regions, there are significant regional differences. Here are six things you need to know about progress towards some of the key SDG.
Launching the report at UN Headquarters on Tuesday, at the start of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), the UN Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) chief, Liu Zhenmin, said that the clock for taking decisive action on climate change is ticking. He stressed the importance of strengthening international cooperation and multilateral action.
“The challenges highlighted in this report are global problems that require global solutions,” Liu said. “Just as problems are interrelated, the solutions to poverty, inequality, climate change and other global challenges are also interlinked.”
The average global temperature is already 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Described by Guterres last year as an “existential threat” to humanity, the outlook for meeting targets to reduce climate change is grim. With rising greenhouse gas emissions, climate change is occurring at rates much faster than anticipated and “its effects are clearly felt worldwide.”
The target, and remember this was agreed by world leaders, is to keep the rate of global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius and, if possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The average global temperature is already 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels but if not enough is done then warming will continue at an unsustainable pace and could well exceed 3 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.