Ref. United Nations'
Global sustainable development report 2019 1
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOMENT GOALS 2
Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 (adoped by United Nations Member States in 2015):
• No poverty
Donate what you don't use
• Zero hunger
Waste less food and support local farmers
• Good health and well-being
Vaccinate your family
• Good quality education
Help educate the children in your community
• Gender equality
Empower women and girls and ensure their equal rights
• Clean water and sanitation
Avoid wasting water
• Affordable and clean energy
Use only energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs
• Decent work and economic growth
Create job opportunities for youth
• Industry, innovation infrastructure
Fund projects that provide basic infrastructure
• Reduced inequalities
Support the marginalized and disadvantaged
• Sustainable cities and communities
Bike, walk or use public transportation
• Responsible consumption and production
Recycle paper, plastic bags, glass and aluminium
• Climate and action
Act now to stop global warming
• Life below water
Avoid plastic bags to keep the oceans clean
• Life on land
Plant a tree and help protect the environment
• Peace, justice and strong institutions
Stand up for human rights
• Partnerships
Lobby your government to boost development financing 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4
I. The transformative power of sustainable development 5
Since the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, there have been many positive developments. Countries have started to incorporate the Goals into national plans and strategies, and many have set up coordinating structures for coherent implementation. Of the 110 voluntary national reviews submitted during the 2016, 2017 and 2018 sessions of the high-level political forum, 35 mentioned explicit measures to link the Goals to their national budgets or were considering such action. There have also been initiatives aimed at safeguarding the environment, notably regarding climate change, land use and oceans. And important parts of the private sector have begun to move away from business-as-usual models, for example by adopting and reporting on sustainability standards. Meanwhile, the mobilization of civil society and non-governmental organizations in favour of sustainable development is rising. 6
However, despite the initial efforts, the world is not on track for achieving most of the 169 targets that comprise the Goals. The limited success in progress towards the Goals raises strong concerns and sounds the alarm for the international community. Much more needs to happen—and quickly—to bring about the transformative changes that are required: impeding policies should urgently be reversed or modified, and recent advances that holistically promote the Goals should be scaled up in an accelerated fashion. 7
Adding to the concern is the fact that recent trends along several dimensions with cross-cutting impacts across the entire 2030 Agenda are not even moving in the right direction. Four in particular fall into that category: rising inequalities, climate change, biodiversity loss and increasing amounts of waste from human activity that are overwhelming capacities to process them. Critically, recent analysis suggests that some of those negative trends presage a move towards the crossing of negative tipping points, which would lead to dramatic changes in the conditions of the Earth system in ways that are irreversible on time scales meaningful for society. Recent assessments show that, under current trends, the world’s social and natural biophysical systems cannot support the aspirations for universal human well-being embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals. 8
Just over 10 years remain to achieve the 2030 Agenda, but no country is yet convincingly able to meet a set of basic human needs at a globally sustainable level of resource use. All are distant to varying degrees from the overarching target of balancing human well-being with a healthy environment. Each country must respond to its own conditions and priorities, while breaking away from current practices of growing first and cleaning up later. The universal transformation towards sustainable development in the next decade depends on the simultaneous achievement of country-specific innovative pathways. 9
Nevertheless, there is reason for hope. Human well-being need not depend on intensive resource use, nor need it exacerbate or entrench inequalities and deprivations. Scientific knowledge allows for the identification of critical pathways that break that pattern, and there are numerous examples from across the world that show that it is possible. 10
The science and practice of sustainable development thus points the way forward. Advancing the 2030 Agenda must involve an urgent and intentional transformation of socioenvironmental-economic systems, differentiated across countries but also adding up to the desired regional and global outcomes, to ensure human well-being, societal health and limited environmental impact. Achieving that transformation—a profound and intentional departure from business as usual—means carefully taking into account the interactions between Goals and targets. Policymakers will find similarities and contradictions within them, as well as systemic interactions and cascade effects, as action towards one Goal can alter the possibilities for meeting other goals. A significant amount of knowledge is already available about those important interactions, and more research is under way. 11
An important key to action is to recognize that, while the present state of imbalance across the three dimensions of sustainable development arises from not having fully appreciated the interlinkages across them or having unduly prioritised the short-term, it is these same interlinkages that will lead to the desired transformative change when properly taken into account. The most efficient—or sometimes the only—way to make progress on a given target is to take advantage of positive synergies with other targets while resolving or ameliorating the negative trade-offs with yet others. Translating that insight into practical action for the Goals is informed in the Report by current assessments that emphasize the need for urgency, forward-looking expectations about a growing global population seeking higher levels of well-being and normative considerations, such as leaving no one behind. 12
Those actions can be undertaken by a more diverse group of people and organizations than governments of United Nations Member States alone. At the local, national and international levels, new key development actors are emerging and gaining greater power and influence. Innovative and powerful partnerships can result from collaborations between traditional stakeholders and emerging actors. The success of the 2030 Agenda thus depends on the cooperation of governments, institutions, agencies, the private sector and civil society across various sectors, locations, borders and levels. 13
II. Transformations for sustainable development 14
The present Global Sustainable Development Report identifies six entry points that offer the most promise for achieving the desired transformations at the necessary scale and speed. In doing so it takes into account the urgency, the forward-looking expectations about a growing global population seeking higher levels of well-being, and normative considerations, such as leaving no one behind, These are not entry points into individual or even clusters of Goals, but rather into the underlying systems. At the same time, not attending to the interlinkages that are intrinsic to these entry points, and cut across them—for example, through focusing on individual Goals and targets—would imperil progress across multiple elements of the 2030 Agenda. The selected entry points are: 15
• Human well-being and capabilities
• Sustainable and just economies
• Food systems and nutrition patterns
• Energy decarbonization with universal access
• Urban and peri-urban development
• Global environmental commons. 16
The Report also identifies four levers, which can be coherently deployed through each entry point to bring about the necessary transformations: 17
• Governance
• Economy and finance
• Individual and collective action
• Science and technology. 18
The levers are related to the means of implementation characterized in Goal 17, but are also different, in that they accommodate the multiple, complementary roles that individual actors and entities play in bringing about change. Each lever can contribute individually to systemic change; however, the present Report argues that it is only through their context-dependent combinations that it will be possible to bring about the transformations necessary for balancing across the dimensions of sustainable development and achieving the 2030 Agenda. As illustrated in the figure below, those combinations are integrative pathways to transformation, which underlie the call to action issued in the Report. 19
Decision makers need to act based on current knowledge and understanding of the linked human-social-environmental systems at all levels. That knowledge also needs to be more widely available to all countries and actors, motivating innovative coalitions and partnerships for success. 20
Moreover, new scientific and technological research, as well as the adaptation of existing knowledge and technologies to specific local and regional contexts, are needed to further streamline efforts, maximize synergies between the Goals and pre-emptively accommodate emerging challenges beyond the 2030 horizon. The present Report constitutes an innovation in the way scientific expertise is mobilized by the United Nations system as a whole. It proposes new ways of strengthening the contribution of science and technology to the 2030 Agenda, helping improve the science-policy interface. 21
III. Entry points and call to action for sustainable development 23
The strategies and call to action proposed in the Report for each of the six entry points for transformations, and for improving the role of science in implementing the Goals, are summarized below. 24
III-A. Human well-being and capabilities 25
Advancing human well-being—including material well-being, health, education, voice, access to a clean and safe environment and resilience—is at the core of transformations towards sustainable development. Not only is human well-being inherently important, but people’s capabilities, in turn, drive global social, economic and environmental change according to sets of knowledge, skills, competencies, and psychological and physical abilities. Health and education are not just development outcomes. They are also the means of achieving key aspects of the global development agenda. 26
The world has made substantial advances in human well-being in recent decades, but extreme deprivations linger, and progress remains uneven. Extreme poverty—defined as living below the monetary threshold of $1.90 per person/day—was at 8.6 per cent of the world population in 2018, and is concentrated—with more than half the world’s extreme poor living in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In 2030, fragile States affected by crisis and conflict will be home to 85 per cent of those remaining in extreme poverty—some 342 million people. 27
Current estimates indicate that the world is not on track, without additional effort, to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. Extreme poverty is now concentrated among marginalized groups—women, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities and others. Gender inequality, which limits the opportunities and capabilities of half the world’s population, further exacerbates the condition of women in poverty. In many places, there are socioeconomic gaps between persons with and persons without disabilities, because persons with disabilities often experience lower levels of education, higher rates of unemployment and economic inactivity, and a lack of social protection in comparison with their peers. 28
Income poverty, poor health, low levels of education, lack of access to water and sanitation and other deprivations tend to overlap. Households and individuals often suffer multiple forms of poverty. In 2015, the number of people living in extreme poverty had fallen to 736 million. But the multidimensional poverty index calculated in 2018 for 105 countries presented a more sobering picture, indicating that 1.3 billion people live in households with overlapping deprivations. There is also clear evidence that multidimensional poverty has been falling more slowly than income poverty. National, regional and local authorities and communities should focus on reducing gaps in opportunities and basic rights among social groups that are most at risk of being left behind in their own territories. 29
In addition, nearly 1 billion people live on $2 to $3 per person/day, barely above the extreme poverty threshold of $1.90. Those who have just moved out of extreme poverty, and the 4 billion people who do not have any form of social protection, remain highly vulnerable to economic and environmental crises, climate change, armed conflicts and other shocks that threaten to push them into extreme poverty. Action must be taken to eliminate deprivations and build resilience, especially through targeted interventions where poverty and vulnerability are concentrated, or billions of people are at risk of being left behind. 30
Eradicating poverty, advancing gender equality and reducing other forms of inequality are closely interrelated objectives and require expanding interventions and measures far beyond the monetary thresholds of extreme deprivations to address the multidimensional and overlapping nature of poverty. Economic growth alone cannot achieve that. Deprivations and inequalities exist in education, health care, access to clean water and energy, access to sanitation services, exposure to infectious diseases and many other critical dimensions of well-being. 31
Quality social services, such as health and education, and protection against natural hazards, including disaster risk reduction, should be available to everyone. Legal and social discrimination against marginalized people should be eliminated, including barriers that limit access by women and girls. This is critical for realizing human rights for all people and respecting human dignity. 32
Furthering human well-being and protecting the Earth’s resources require expanding human capabilities far beyond the thresholds of extreme poverty, whether based on income or other basic needs, so that people are empowered and equipped to bring about change. Investment in early childhood development, access to high-quality education, higher enrolment in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programmes—especially for girls—expansion of healthy years of life, and attention to mental health and non-communicable diseases can improve lifelong chances for individuals and are cost-effective means of accelerating sustainable development. 33
Effective action in any of those areas requires acknowledging and addressing the links among them—the close ties between climate change and human health, for instance, or the ways in which biodiversity loss and deterioration of ecosystem services exacerbate inequalities. Pathways to advance human well-being ultimately require cooperation, collaboration and dialogue among multiple actors, and employing many levers of change. There is no single pathway, and different combinations of efforts are required across regions and for countries in special situations. 34
III-B. Sustainable and just economies 35
Economic growth has increased national incomes significantly, albeit unevenly, across countries. While that has contributed to advances in human, social and economic well-being, the effects on human societies and the environment are currently unsustainable. Economic activity should be seen not as an end in itself, but rather as a means for sustainably advancing human capabilities. Decoupling the benefits of economic activity from its costs at all levels is essential in itself and can also support the systemic transformations envisaged through the other five entry points advocated in this Report. Such an outcome would greatly accelerate the necessary reconfiguration and help to put people, societies and nature on the path to sustainable development. 36
Currently, there are numerous reasons why that is not happening. One oft-cited reason is the use of the gross domestic product (GDP)—the market value of goods and services produced over a year—as the sole or predominant metric for guiding economic policy for human development. While reforming policymaking at this level is essential, it may not happen rapidly enough across the world to guarantee effective pathways towards sustainable development. 37
On the other hand, several other significant impediments could be addressed, even in the very short term. Production valuations do not account for all costs or value added, since prices charged for goods and services do not reflect the full costs of negative externalities, such as waste generated and released into the environment. Continually increasing the consumption of waste-generating goods and services globally is unsustainable. On current trends, annual global resource use is projected to reach over 18 tons per capita by 2060, with unsustainable impacts from increases in greenhouse gas emissions, industrial water withdrawals and agricultural land area. Examining the life cycles of specific items, such as plastics and electronics, leads to similar conclusions. Indeed, social and economic deprivations in many parts of the world can be addressed only through increasing consumption, but that needs to be balanced by shifting consumption globally towards goods and services produced with much lower environmental impact. 38
Investment in the Sustainable Development Goals from all sources is significantly short of what is needed. Production across national jurisdictions also leads to its own set of challenges. While globalization has contributed to reducing poverty, generating jobs, enabling greater access to a wider range of products and sparking innovation, the distribution of production across different national jurisdictions can also result in a race to the bottom in terms of environmental and labour standards. Nationally determined instruments, such as regulations or taxes, may not be adequate to manage those effects. 39
In recent times, economic growth has also been deeply unequal. There has been an unprecedented increase in wealth and income disparities in many countries, primarily driven by concentration at the top, with the share of the richest 1 per cent of the world population reaching about 33 per cent of total wealth on the planet, in 2017. For the lowest quarter of the distribution, the share was only about 10 per cent. For individuals caught between those two extremes—primarily the middle classes in Western Europe and the United States of America –, the period was marked by—at best—sluggish income growth. Concerns remain that increasing automation, including the work performed by skilled workers, may lead to worsening outcomes for many, with increasing inequalities and ever greater concentration of wealth and power. In addition, labour market inequalities between women and men limit the advancement of gender equality and the empowerment of women. Income, wealth and gender inequalities often translate into inequalities in opportunity through unequal access to quality childhood nutrition, education, health care or societal discrimination, and they limit intergenerational mobility. Indeed, inequalities can become self-perpetuating, through inherited wealth or exclusive access to high-quality education and skills. 40
There is now consensus—based on robust empirical evidence—that high levels of inequalities not only raise difficult issues for social justice, but also lower long-term economic growth and make such growth more fragile. Inequalities also tend to become entrenched through the efforts of those at the very top to secure and perpetuate their positions through various channels, such as having a greater say in the political process or weakening anti-trust and other regulatory efforts that are aimed at curbing monopoly power and improving market efficiency. 41
Perpetuating current modes of production and consumption, and current levels of inequality threaten the achievement of the entire 2030 Agenda. Urgent transitioning away from patterns of economic growth, production and consumption that perpetuate deprivations, generate inequalities, deplete the global environmental commons and threaten irreversible damage is needed. Transitioning towards long-term decarbonized and sustainable development that maximizes positive human impacts, equalizes opportunities among social groups and women and men, and minimizes environmental degradation is essential. 42
A significant part of the transformation will come from changing volumes and patterns of investment—both public and private. Estimates of the magnitude of the investment needed vary, but are generally of the order of trillions of dollars annually. Increasing the volume of investments and redirecting them towards sustainable development will be key: national and international financial systems must be aligned with the Goals. Investments from development finance institutions, official development assistance (ODA) in keeping with international commitments and domestic public budgets at national and local levels can help to crowd in investments from the private sector. At the same time, all flows must be made consistent with sustainable development pathways through means that are ambitious, transparent and accurate. An agreed upon sustainable development investment label could help channel capital flows towards assets that contribute to sustainable development. 43
III-C. Food systems and nutrition patterns 44
Food is essential to human survival, and its provision employs over 1 billion people. The global food system comprises many local and regional food systems. It includes not only food production but also all food-related activities and how those activities interact with the Earth’s natural resources and processes. Because of its climate and environmental impacts and shortcomings in healthy, safe nutrition for all, today’s global food system is unsustainable. Moreover, it does not guarantee healthy food patterns for the world’s population. It is estimated that more than 820 million people are still hungry. At the same time, rising obesity and overweight can be seen in almost every region of the world. Globally, 2 billion adults are overweight, as are 40 million children under 5 years of age. 45
Billions of hectares of land have already been degraded, and an additional 12 million hectares of agricultural land are likely to become unusable for food production every year. Furthermore, agricultural practices can lead to eutrophication of the aquatic environment, groundwater contamination, soil acidification and atmospheric pollution. Those practices were also responsible for 60 per cent of the global emissions of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) in 2011. However, the share of N2O from agriculture seems to be decreasing. When all emissions associated with the global food system are considered, they account for more than 19 to 29 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions. Without technological improvements or other forms of mitigation, especially the restoration of soil health in order to increase its carbon content, greenhouse gas emissions from global agriculture could rise by as much as 87 per cent if production is simply increased to meet the demands of the global population in 2050. That scenario is incompatible with the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Agenda. 46
Another concern is fluctuating food prices and asymmetric contractual and trade agreements, which handicap the world’s 750 million smallholder farmers in developing countries and affect the poorer households, which spend a high proportion of their income on food. Moreover, although there are many economic actors in the global food market, many of its components are controlled by a relatively small number of actors. Concentration runs the risk of reducing the resilience of the global food system by generating uniformity in industrial agricultural practices. 47
Scaling up the food system as it exists today to feed a growing global population through 2050 and beyond, while accommodating non-food agricultural commodities is an overarching concern. However, under business-as-usual scenarios, an estimated 637 million people will be undernourished, and the environmental impacts of increased production would eliminate any chance of achieving the Goals of the 2030 Agenda. In addition, pests and crop diseases put global food supplies at risk; but managing them with increased use of chemical inputs could jeopardize many environment-related Goals. 48
Thus, business-as-usual pathways and upscaling current practices are not options if the global food system is to sustainably and equitably meet the needs of the global population in the future. Fortunately, however, the challenge of transitioning food systems onto a sustainable trajectory is not insurmountable. Recent studies describe food systems that are capable of delivering nutritious food for a global population of 9 to 10 billion with greatly reduced environmental impacts. Transitioning to sustainable food systems requires technological innovation, strategic use of economic incentives, new forms of governance and value and behavioural changes. 49
Because the quantity, quality and price of agricultural goods produced by worldwide plant production systems remain heavily dependent on chemical fertilization and the control of pests and weeds, technological innovations in food production methods are prerequisites for transitioning towards environment-friendly and healthy production systems. However, technologies alone cannot deliver the transition. Policy and institutional and cultural changes are needed to enable more equitable global access to nutritional foods and to promote agroecological practices that are deeply rooted in local and indigenous cultures and knowledge, and based on small- and medium-scale farms that have temporal and spatial diversification and locally adapted varieties and breeds that can be strongly resistant to environmental stress. Agroecology has proven successful in helping farmers overcome the effects of degraded soil and poor weather in many developing countries. 50
In transitioning towards sustainable food systems, the focus must be on enabling more equitable global access to nutritional foods and maximizing the nutritional value of produce while, at the same time, minimizing the climate and environmental impacts of production. The actions of all four levers that can transform the food system vary from region to region and there are clearly many viable pathways. As prescribed in Goal 17, it will take a combination of different tools, actors and solutions adapted to diverse contexts to achieve transformation of the food system. 51
III-D. Energy decarbonization with universal access 52
Access to energy is universally recognized as key to economic development and to the realization of human and social well-being. Energy poverty remains extensive, with close to 1 billion people without access to electricity—predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa—and more than 3 billion people relying on polluting solid fuels for cooking, which causes an estimated 3.8 million premature deaths each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In many regions, the current use of biomass fuels requires women and children to spend many hours per week collecting and carrying traditional biomass that is burned in highly inefficient and polluting stoves. Yet, electricity generation, heat production and transport rely heavily on fossil fuels and together account for roughly 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, including 40 per cent from electricity. The fastest progress in renewables continues to be in electricity generation, where close to 25 per cent came from renewables in 2016, thanks to the rapid expansion of solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind. The use of modern renewables for heat and transport remains limited, with shares of 9 per cent and 3.3 per cent, respectively. Considering that heat and transport represent 80 per cent of total final energy consumption, particular efforts are needed in those areas to accelerate the uptake of renewables. With renewable energy increasingly dominating power production, modernization of electricity transport and distribution, including options such as hydrogen and storage technologies, and electrification of energy end uses can become the drivers of decarbonization in the energy sector. 53
Technologies already exist for moving to decarbonized pathways. In 2016, nearly one fourth of electricity generation came from renewables, including solar PV and wind. However, progress has been hampered by slow progress in smart-grid management and long-term electricity storage. The amount of modern renewable energy in the total global energy supply increased by an average of 5.4 per cent annually over the past decade and for five years in a row (2014-2018), global investments in clean energy exceeded $300 billion annually. That was facilitated by the fact that, since 2009, the price of renewable electricity has dropped by 77 per cent for solar PV and by 38 per cent for onshore wind, while the cost of electricity from conventional sources has undergone only modest reductions. 54
Difficulties in adopting, at a sufficient scale, alternative energies to fossil fuels, including nuclear, hydro, bioenergy and other renewables, imperil substantial portions of the 2030 Agenda. Globally, direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuels still far exceed subsidies to renewable energy, and such distortion of market prices is slowing the diffusion of renewable energy sources. Reliance on fossil fuels for transport remains massive. Shifts in consumer behaviour may reduce global oil use for cars, which is expected to reach its peak in the 2020s, but the demand for trucks, ships and aircraft continues to push overall oil demand for transport on a rapid upward trajectory. Global passenger demand (measured in passenger-kilometres) is expected to more than double between 2015 and 2050, with most of the growth occurring in developing economies. The positive benefits of electric vehicles for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and human exposure to pollutants may greatly vary depending on the type of electric vehicle, the source of energy generation, driving conditions, charging patterns and availability of charging infrastructure, government policies and the local climate in the region of use. Indeed, promotion of public transportation and slow mobility (e.g. walking and biking) remain key strategies for decarbonizing the transport and energy sectors. With regard to biomass: it is a limited resource and should be prioritized for use in situations in which there is no obvious alternative, as its harvesting can lead to loss of biodiversity and trade-offs in terms of land rights, food security and access to water. Biomass burning is also a significant source of air pollution, therefore its use should be subject to strong regulations, and alternatives should be encouraged, particularly for cooking. 55
Between 1965 and 2015, world per capita energy consumption increased from 1.3 to 1.9 tons of oil equivalent but individual average consumption is three to four times higher in developed countries, where progress in energy efficiency has been able to limit only the rate of growth of demand. Because rising incomes and a growing population mostly added to urban areas in developing countries, at the world level, demand for energy is expected to increase by 25 per cent in 2040, and the increase could be twice as large were not for continued improvements in energy efficiency. According to the International Energy Agency, if annual investment in renewables does not at least double, and continues at the current pace, fossil fuels will retain a predominant role in supplying up to 78 per cent of total energy in 2030, and a similar share even in 2050. The direct consequence will be the persistence of the current negative trend of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, which will make it impossible to reach the Paris Agreement objective of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels. 56
In 2017, for the first time, the number of people without access to electricity dipped below 1 billion, but trends on energy access fell short of global goals. Nonetheless, with current trends, 650 million people, living predominantly in rural settlements in sub-Saharan Africa, are projected to remain without electricity in 2040. 57
The share of electricity in global final energy consumption is approaching 20 per cent and is set to rise further. A doubling of electricity demand in developing economies puts cleaner, universally available and affordable electricity at the centre of strategies for economic sustainable development and greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Electrification brings benefits—notably by reducing local pollution—and requires additional measures to decarbonize power supply if it is to unlock its full potential as a way to meet climate goals. The potential for progress is clear. The convergence of cheaper renewable energy technologies, digital applications and the rising role of electricity is a crucial vector for change. Solutions need to be context specific with energy mixes, including decentralized renewable energies, emerging from the disruptive changes in energy production and consumption, and presenting significant transition risks to long-term fossil fuel infrastructure investment. 58
III-E. Urban and peri-urban development 59
If current trends continue, cities will contain approximately 70 per cent of the world’s population and produce 85 per cent of global economic output by 2050. The human and environmental impact of cities is staggeringly high, and imposes a high cost on surrounding rural areas. Ninety per cent of people living in cities breathe air that fails to meet WHO standards of air quality (10 micrograms per cubic metre (μg/m) of particulate matter); no metropolitan city in sub-Saharan Africa or Asia meets that standard. The water footprint of cities—their water source area—accounts for 41 per cent of the Earth’s surface, while their physical footprint—their land area—covers only 2 per cent; the land occupied by cities in the developing world will triple by 2050. Cities are responsible for 70 per cent of the global greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, and will need to become carbon neutral if the world is to achieve the targets contained in the Paris Agreement. If development continues in the business-as-usual model, the cities of the world will consume 90 billion tons per year of raw materials, such as sand, gravel, iron ore, coal and wood, by 2050, That will have irreversible consequences on the depletion of those finite resources, and will mean the destruction of natural habitats and green space, and resulting loss of biodiversity. In many cases, urbanization is proceeding organically, without planning, and since urban centres concentrate in coastal areas, urban residents live with a high risk of flooding, mudslides and other disasters. 60
In addition, cities give rise to the potential for severe income disparity and extreme inequality in health, food security, housing, education and access to meaningful social and cultural lives and fulfilling work. Globally, 35 per cent of urban populations have no access to municipal waste management. Persons with disabilities face several barriers to active life in many cities around the world when public transport, public buildings and commercial centres are not made accessible to them. In sub-Saharan Africa, more than half (56 per cent) of the urban population currently live in slums. In many North American and European cities, a wide income gulf separates the rich and poor, sometimes even within the radius of a few kilometres. 61
However, much urbanization takes place in areas where new infrastructure is being built, freeing cities from path dependencies and allowing for novel, sustainable solutions. Policy and investment decisions made today will have a deep and long-lasting impact based on that concentration of people and economic activities, but also because of the locked-in, long-term nature of urban systems—energy and water systems, transportation networks, buildings and other infrastructure. With key interventions, cities can become sustainable development leaders and laboratories for the world at large. A 2030 Agenda city will be compact and accessible to all, including women, youth, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable populations, with sufficient public transit and active mobility options, a flourishing economic base with decent jobs for all, accessible digital infrastructure and mixed land use, including residential, commercial, educational spaces and green public spaces. 62
Urban development should proceed in a well-planned, integrated and inclusive manner, with city governments working together with businesses, civil society organizations, individuals, national governments, the authorities in neighbouring peri-urban towns and rural areas, and peer cities around the world, leading to an active and dynamic movement. A new, robust science of cities can give urban policymakers around the world access to a body of knowledge and good practices. 63
Urban and peri-urban decision makers should take the central tenet of the 2030 Agenda to heart and ensure that no one is left behind in their cities and towns. That means prioritizing pro-poor development and access to decent jobs, effective public services, and safe and attractive public spaces for all, regardless of gender, age, ability and ethnicity. Bridging the last mile to those currently living without quality health care, education, safe drinking water and sanitation services, nutritious food and reliable transportation is critical, particularly because inequality is often extremely high in cities. Strengthening climate resilience and adaptation measures will be particularly important for vulnerable populations in coastal cities. 64
The reality of cities—people living in close proximity to one another—creates opportunities for fully decoupling economic growth from environmental degradation and advancing along sustainable pathways to development. Governments, businesses, civil society organizations and individuals can use a range of policy, economic and communications tools to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns through well-planned land use, effective urban public transport systems, including active mobility—walking and biking –, rapid scale-up of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and promotion of sustainable and technology-enabled businesses and jobs. 65
Innovative governments, a committed private sector and an active—and often, young and well-educated—citizenry can overcome inequalities and create liveable cities in both developing and developed countries. A liveable city will provide high-quality services and foster “naturbanity”—a close connection between people and nature to protect biodiversity, enhance human health and well-being, and strengthen climate resilience. Liveable cities can be smart cities that use technology to provide services in a more efficient and equitable manner. Liveable cities will also create more equitable and symbiotic relationships with the surrounding peri-urban and rural areas. 66
III-F. Global environmental commons 67
The global environmental commons comprise the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the global ocean, the cryosphere, polar regions, large-scale biomes and natural resources systems such as forests, land, water and biodiversity, which make up the Earth’s shared resources. The commons contribute to the functioning of the biosphere—the global ecological system—and are vital for human survival and well-being. Conditions on Earth are shaped by the interaction among all living organisms (biosphere) and the climate system. Consequently, changes in the biosphere’s functioning caused by human activities are eventually reflected in the overall environmental conditions on Earth. 68
Ensuring the long-term health of the global environmental commons is therefore essential. Current human action is rapidly depleting and degrading the commons. There is an urgent need to manage how resources are extracted from the commons, how efficiently the resources are used, how they are distributed, and how waste is disposed of. Since the global environmental commons are intrinsically linked to one another, achieving sustainability of the Earth’s systems requires anticipating feedback effects among the commons in order to maximize co-benefits and minimize trade-offs, both globally and locally. 69
Breaching the limits of those systems presents risks that incur severe social, economic and political consequences. In the Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES/7/10/Add.1, annex), the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) stated that “nature across most of the globe has been significantly altered by multiple human drivers, with the great majority of indicators of ecosystems and biodiversity showing rapid decline”. Seventy-five percent of Earth’s land surface has been significantly altered, 66 per cent of the ocean area is experiencing increasing cumulative impacts, and over 85 per cent of wetlands has been lost. 70
One immediate implication is that natural capital stocks that are necessary for most economic activities have been degraded and depleted. Much natural capital cannot be fully substituted by human-made infrastructure. For example, coastal flooding that often results from storm surges can be reduced by naturally occurring coastal mangroves or by human-made dikes and sea walls. However, built infrastructure is quite expensive, usually incurs high maintenance costs in the future and fails to provide additional benefits, such as nursery habitats for edible fish or recreational opportunities. Other ecological functions or ecosystem services are irreplaceable. Loss of biodiversity can permanently reduce future options—such as wild plants that might be domesticated as new crops or used for genetic improvement—and threatens resilience, as lost species may have been resistant to diseases, pests or climate change. 71
Biodiversity loss is particularly dire, with the global rate of species extinction already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has averaged over the past 10 million years, implying that nearly 1 million species already face extinction. Many pollinating species have declined in abundance and are threatened with further loss, putting the production of 75 per cent of food crops at risk. Local varieties and breeds of domesticated plants and animals are also disappearing. This unprecedented loss of biodiversity is driven by several interrelated negative externalities occasioned by human activity, including resource overexploitation, chemical pollution, fragmentation of land, introduction of invasive species, poaching, the disposal of plastics and, not least, climate change. 72
Other constituents of the global environmental commons are under threat: the atmospheric system is being degraded from greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, stratospheric ozone depletion and persistent organic pollutants. Given the interconnections across the commons, those agents have severe deleterious effects on oceanic and terrestrial ecosystems. Climate change, for example, disrupts the supporting, regulating and provisioning services of ecosystems while increasing the intensity of hazards such as extreme heat, intense rainfall, floods, landslides, rise in sea level and drought. Air pollution presents one of the highest health risks globally, especially in fast-growing cities in developing countries, with 91 per cent of the world’s population breathing air in which pollutants exceed the World Health Organization pollution guidelines. According to the World Health Organization, indoor and outdoor air pollution kills an estimated 8 million people per year. 73
The ocean provides critical regulating and provisioning services that synergistically support most of the Sustainable Development Goals. Securing the ocean can feed and provide livelihoods for people and, at the same time, maintain habitats, protect biodiversity and coastal areas, and regulate climate change through its role as a carbon sink. Projected changes in the ocean are expected to create feedback that will lead to greater global warming. Warming itself, coupled with ocean acidification—which is caused by carbon uptake—attacks coral reefs and impacts biodiversity, local livelihoods and coastal protection. The ocean supports the livelihoods of 40 million fishers; however, overfishing and ocean acidification threaten those livelihoods. The ocean also receives a growing amount of garbage, sewage, plastic debris, anthropogenic nanoparticles, fertilizers, hazardous chemicals and oil, all of which endanger marine species and biodiversity, contaminate human food chains, pose risks to the human immune system, reduce fertility and increase the risks of cancer. 74
A similar picture emerges with regard to land systems. Despite international and national efforts to limit deforestation, forests worldwide have been disappearing at an alarming rate. No less than 1.3 million square kilometres of forests have been lost since 1990, mostly in tropical regions (South and Central America, sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia), covering an area equivalent to the size of South Africa. Those forests were cleared for agriculture, access to extractive resources, urbanization and other reasons. In particular, Earth’s two largest rainforest areas, the Amazon rainforest in South America and the Congo rainforest in Central Africa are key to global environmental health. They influence climate change, through their crucial role in carbon capture and storage, affect weather patterns across the two continents, and safeguard unique species and biodiverse communities. Capturing carbon by avoiding deforestation is more efficient than afforestation because old-growth forests capture more carbon than recently planted trees. Protecting existing old-growth forests creates simultaneous benefits for biodiversity, cultural and ecosystem services, climate change mitigation and adaption for people. 75
Achieving land degradation neutrality can contribute to accelerating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Restoring the soils of degraded ecosystems has the estimated potential to store up to 3 billion tons of carbon annually. Climate-smart land management practices, including low-emissions agriculture, agroforestry and restoration of high-carbon-value ecosystems, such as forests and peatlands, nearly always come with adaptation co-benefits. 76
The effects of depletion can also be clearly observed in the case of freshwater availability. It is expected that by 2025, 1.8 billion people will experience absolute water scarcity, and two thirds of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed conditions. Drought and water scarcity are considered to be the most far-reaching of all natural hazards, causing short- and long-term economic, health and ecological losses. Land restoration raises groundwater levels, increases crop yields and induces positive changes in the fauna of the region concerned, as exemplified by recent evidence from Ethiopia and Niger. 77
At all levels, it is essential to reverse the trend of overexploitation of the global environmental commons. Exploitation must be managed within boundaries that maintain the resilience and stability of natural ecosystems, and allow for the natural renewal of resources. 78
Multilateral agreements, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, are mechanisms to protect the global environmental commons and guarantee their global sustainable management. Importantly, each agreement is supported by a formal scientific advisory body: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and the Committee on Science and Technology, respectively. That suggests that science diplomacy can improve the management of the global environmental commons and support partnerships to effectively manage the commons in conflicting contexts. 79
However, ensuring the sustainability of the global commons is not just a matter of global governance; a plethora of actions at all levels—from global to local—and involvement of the most directly affected communities is equally important. Indeed, policies must address hard-to-change behaviours that are damaging to the environment, including economic incentives such as removing harmful subsidies, introducing appropriate taxation, and regulation such as progressive carbon taxation mechanisms. Empowering people to make positive change through education, awareness raising and social movements is critical. Social acceptability of those much-needed changes will be facilitated if management of the global commons explicitly addresses human well-being and environmental injustice. Such management should avoid maldistribution and seek to repair the damage already caused by poor technical, financial and political interventions. especially where indigenous communities and other vulnerable groups are concerned, with concerted efforts to leave no one behind. 80
III-G. Science for sustainable development 81
For better or for worse, science and technology are powerful agents of change, depending on how they are steered. Guided by the 2030 Agenda, increased science-policy- society cooperation can harness breakthroughs in our understanding of coupled human-environment systems and the shaping of innovative pathways towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The fact that a large number of countries are now incorporating science, technology and innovation in their national development agenda is a promising sign. 82
Despite the economic and financial crisis of 2008–2009, expenditure on research and development increased worldwide by 30.5 per cent between 2007 and 2013—more than global GDP (up 20 per cent). The number of researchers worldwide expanded by 21 per cent and the number of scientific publications grew by 23 per cent. Moreover, there is a growing tendency for governments and companies to invest in sustainable technologies. Recent reports show that, over the past 10 years, at least 101 economies across the developed and developing world (accounting for more than 90 per cent of global GDP) adopted formal industrial development strategies, which increased opportunities for formulating new ways to promote innovations toward sustainable development. However, developing technology alone is not enough: technology must be made available, accessible and sufficiently attractive to encourage widespread adoption. Hence, in addition to research and development, the scaling up and the adoption of sustainable technologies are critically needed. 83
Rapid technological advances in computer sciences, artificial intelligence and biotechnologies hold the promise of providing solutions to many of the challenges facing the Sustainable Development Goals, including those that involve difficult trade-offs. For example, technology can facilitate accessibility to built environments, transport and information and communication services, promote inclusion and help realize the full and equal participation in society of the 1 billion persons with disabilities worldwide. 84
At the same time, technological innovations risk further entrenching existing inequalities, introducing new ones and, through unintended consequences, setting back progress towards the 2030 Agenda. For example, without access to digital infrastructure and accessible information and communication technology, persons with disabilities are at increased risk of being excluded from statistics and surveys used to develop future programmes and policies. 85
The Multi-stakeholder Forum on Science Technology and Innovation for the Sustainable Development Goals, part of the Technology Facilitation Mechanism mandated by the 2030 Agenda and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, has already met four times in New York. The Forum is intended to provide a venue for facilitating interaction between relevant stakeholders in order to identify and examine needs and gaps with regard to science and technology, innovation and capacity-building, and to help facilitate development, transfer and dissemination of relevant technologies for the sustainable development goals. 86
Furthermore, international scientific assessments that have already contributed to tracking progress and identifying barriers towards sustainable development can synthesize existing knowledge and build consensus on key insights. They also provide crucial advice for policymaking. Going forward, more effort is needed to integrate regional perspectives and maximize synergies between different assessments. 87
Despite those advances, significant gaps remain for bridging the scientific and technological divide between developed and developing countries. The highly uneven global distribution of scientific capacity and access to knowledge threatens to derail the 2030 Agenda. Over 60 per cent of total scientific literature and most research and development are carried out in high-income countries. Facilitating multidirectional science and technology transfers from North to South and from South to North and through South-South collaborations will contribute to better aligning progress and innovation trajectories to meet the needs of the 2030 Agenda. Ultimately, the universality of the Agenda requires that every country have at its disposal the necessary science and technology to devise the transformative pathways to respond to its specific characteristics, needs and priorities. 88
On the gender equality front, although the number of women in science and engineering is growing at the global level, men still outnumber women, especially at the upper levels of those professions. Even in countries where girls and boys take math and science courses in roughly equal numbers, and about as many girls as boys leave secondary school prepared to pursue careers in science and engineering, fewer women than men actually do so. Actively promoting gender equality in the sciences has the potential to lead to substantial knowledge, social and economic gains. 89
States are currently spending relatively little on research and development to implement the 2030 Agenda. During the post-war golden era of economic growth, basic research, as well as radical invention risk-taking and technological innovation, were financed largely by the public sector. Nowadays, most research is driven by commercial interests or funded by private funds and philanthropic organizations—and is concentrated in certain countries. That phenomenon is worrying because meeting today’s challenges and circumventing vested interests requires rapid, unprecedented funding, with an appropriate balance between public and private investments, and a significant increase of research capacities in all developing countries. Very little of the current research investment is focused on elucidating the interactions between levers and actions that are so critical for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. 90
The urgent need for sustainable transformations requires strengthening the directionality of science on behalf of a mutually beneficial “moon landing” for humanity and the Earth. Researchers, science policymakers and funding agencies can use the 2030 Agenda as a shared compass to increase the relevance and benefits of science and technology for the global community. 91
In recent decades, scientists have begun to address the web of challenges facing humanity, with interdisciplinary research focused on coupled human-environment systems or socio-ecological systems. That has given birth to a new, more engaged academic discipline—sustainability science—that draws on all scientific disciplines, including social sciences and humanities in a problem-solving approach, and seeks to shed light on complex, often contentious and value-laden nature-society interactions, while generating usable scientific knowledge for sustainable development. Sustainability science can help tackle the trade-offs and contested issues involved in implementing the 2030 Agenda, such as dealing with risks, uncertainty, ethical dimensions and the appropriate use of the precautionary principle. It involves working with affected groups and communities to recognize problems and goals, and identify key trade-offs. Sustainability science has attracted tens of thousands of researchers, practitioners, knowledge users, teachers and students from diverse institutions and disciplines across the world. However, massive investment from the scientific and engineering communities, as well as funding bodies, is still needed. 92
III-H. Not incremental change but transformation 93
The 2030 Agenda is more than the sum of measurable Goals, targets, and indicators. It is both a normative orientation and a guide for action for identifying and pursuing sustainable development priorities and creating coherence between policies and sectors, in all contexts—local, regional, national, transnational and global. While the six entry points and four levers proposed in the Global Sustainable Development Report indicate a general plan of action, they do not provide an exhaustive coverage of the challenges to achieving the 2030 Agenda. The entry points and levers should rather be used as references to guide countries and all actors in their own context-specific implementation strategies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and in their assessment of the Goals-related trade-offs that are underlined in the Report. 94
To conclude, the first quadrennial edition of the Global Sustainable Development Report proposes three final global calls to action that would be especially helpful for the implementation of the other 17 calls for action issued therein, in a way that would appropriately take into account the interlinkages across all Goals and the holistic character of the 2030 Agenda. 95
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