Background

The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present a vision for the wellbeing of all people in prosperity, peace and partnership while preserving the integrity of our planet. The goal of protecting Earth’s climate (SDG 13) is underpinned by the Paris Agreement: Through an international climate action architecture of coordinated nationally determined contributions the global warming shall be held well below 2°C.

Numerous processes at local, national and international level are in motion to implement these global agreements. However, the current initiatives are unlikely to fulfil the ambition of the Paris Agreement. This points to the need to implement faster and deeper transformation processes. 

Similarly, the world is not on track for meeting the SDGs as a whole. Scientific papers emphasize that an integrated approach is needed to enable positive and mitigate possible negative synergies between climate targets and other SDGs.