“No single SDG or the SDGs as a whole will be successfully implemented if we do it within silos. […] Just to give an example: Health and well-being partly depend on nutrition and food-security, which depend on agriculture and fisheries, which in turn depend on the state of the land, oceans, and seas and other issues like conservation and the environment – with climate change as an overarching and cross-cutting factor.”
H.E. Mr. Ronald Jumeau, Ambassador for Climate Change and Small Island Developing State Issues, Seychelles, moderating a panel on "Ensuring that no one is left behind - Food security and sustainable agriculture, climate action, sustainable oceans and terrestrial ecosystems - adopting a nexus approach" at the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, 12 July 2016.
You can watch the full panel discussion including Mr. Jumeau's remarks here.
Global progress towards achieving the SDGs is slow, and for many targets, off track. While SDG implementation is primarily a national task and responsibility, it also requires concerted international cooperation. This article presents two arguments why foreign policy could play an important role in their achievement.
No country is immune to natural hazards, but for fragile states, the effects are even more severe. Mostly, conflict prevention and humanitarian aid are seen as more pressing priorities to protect livelihoods there. This pushes efforts of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction to the bottom of the priority list and results in compounded pressures.
As the debate over climate-related security risks grows, many Pacific Island States are calling for more action by the international community to better address the links between climate change and global security. In an interview with adelphi, the former President of Nauru, Baron Waqa, highlights some of these calls as well as the challenges in getting the climate-security issue on the UN’s agenda.
A record breaking European heatwave provided a fitting backdrop to the latest round of UN climate change talks, in which delegates from around the world descended on Bonn for a two-week diplomatic effort.