How to harness climate and sustainable development synergy
Published today the UN’s report on Harnessing Climate and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Synergies highlights the benefits of acting jointly on climate and sustainable development.
The world is facing an unprecedented convergence of challenges: intensifying natural disasters and impacts of climate change, slowing global growth, rising debt burdens and escalating energy costs are causing economic losses, human suffering and rapid degradation of nature.
Published today the UN’s report on Harnessing Climate and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Synergies highlights the benefits of acting jointlyon climate and sustainable development which can deliver almost 40% greater efficiency, freeing resources and maximizing co-benefits across people, planet, and prosperity.
Bennett Institute’s Felix Creutzig, a member of the expert group contributing to the report says, “80% of SDGs also relate to climate action. It’s a waste of resources to continue addressing sustainability and climate in siloes.”
Felix expands this to say,
“Leveraging synergies between climate action and health can bring vast benefits to municipalities, reducing burden of disease for children, improving worker productivity, and increasing quality of life while making urban infrastructure resilient to an increasing severity of extreme events.”
He recommends:
The UN report concludes SDGs and climate targets are largely overlapping and jointly tackling them can bring highly improved efficiency in government spending. It is important to design approaches that jointly tackle climate change and directly address the quality of life and needs of citizens, especially when it comes to urban action.
