Biodiversity & Livelihoods
Climate Change
Environment & Migration
Forests
Land & Food
Water
Global Issues
Sophie Yeo

On Friday in New York, countries will adopt a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will guide global development up to 2030.

The SDGs take the form of 17 goals, accompanied by 169 targets that give precise information about what should be achieved.

They do not skimp on ambition. If countries succeed in meeting the goals, by 2030 there will be an end to poverty, hunger, child labour, AIDS and various other problems that blight millions of lives globally.

Climate change plays an important role in what the UN is calling the "post-2015 development agenda". "Sustainable development" - a notoriously difficult term to define - becomes impossible unless global temperature rise is tackled, according to the final document:

"Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time and its adverse impacts undermine the ability of all countries to achieve sustainable development."

Not only has climate change been given its own, dedicated target, but it is also integrated into almost all of the other goals. Many of the targets directly reference the need to tackle climate change and its impacts in some form or another.

For the complete article, please see Carbon Brief.

Source:
Carbon Brief

Conflict Transformation
Security
Water
Global Issues
Adrien Detges, adelphi and Tobias Ide, Georg Eckert Institute

Although water is an essential input for agriculture and industrial production, it is also scarce in many regions. When it crosses international borders via shared rivers, lakes and aquifers, it can become a source of conflict and contention. Yet while water can be a source of instability, especially in the face of climate change, it can also be a source or catalyst for cooperation and even peace.

Development
Energy
Middle East & North Africa
Megan Darby, Climate Home

The Gulf Cooperation Council’s grid operator is studying the feasibility of a cable to Ethiopia, which would run through currently war-torn Yemen.

Climate Change
Early Warning & Risk Analysis
Sub-Saharan Africa
Central America & Caribbean
Oceania & Pacific
Asia
Thoriq Ibrahim, Former Environment and Energy Minister of the Maldives

Small Island States will be facing dramatically higher adaptation costs to build resilience against the kind of impacts the IPCC projects in its most recent Special Report. Thoriq Imbrahim, former Environment and Energy Minister of the Maldives, urges the international community to attend to the political demands of countries particularly exposed to the impacts of climate change and also confront loss and damage with renewed urgency.

Climate Change
Climate Diplomacy
Global Issues
Lou del Bello

Three years after the talks that delivered the Paris Agreement, the world is gathering in Poland to take stock of the progress that has been made and to raise its ambitions. But as new nationalist leaders take power, has the world lost its appetite for climate action?