1 August, New York – The United Nations has set out seventeen Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030. The goals include, ‘sustainable management of water and sanitation’, ‘sustainable production and consumption patterns’, ‘sustainable industrialisation’, ‘access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy’, and ‘tackling climate change and its impacts’.
There was steep resistance from many countries to including a climate change goal, which is primarily governed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to the UNFCCC is to take place in Paris in December, with the aim of achieving a legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature increases.
European countries, and the European Commission, had been pushing for its inclusion as a development goal, recognising that growth needs to be decoupled from environmental impact, and that climate change will hit developing countries hardest.
The Goals are to be approved at a UN Summit on 25-27 September. Click to see the full text, ‘Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’.