Analysing the Sustainable Development Goals: #13 Climate Action
Climate change is, according to the United Nations, the single biggest threat to sustainable development and defined as Climate Action is Goal 13 on the Sustainable Development Goals. It affects economies, nations, communities and people, and impacts most significantly the poorest and most vulnerable. From climate change arise biodiversity loss, rising sea levels, prolonged droughts, extreme weather, and most crucially natural disasters.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we only have until 2030 to slash emissions by half and limit global warming to 1.5ºC, the maximum required amount to avoid lasting damage to the global ecosystem. Hence, urgent action is needed to combat climate change and its impact. Together, the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, the Paris agreement and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction are in action towards providing a foundation for a more resilient world under a changing climate.
What is Climate Change and How does it affect the environment?
Global temperature has increased on average by 0.85ºC since 1880 which by the end of the century is expected to rise by 6ºC. No one knows what this would mean for the environment, but without urgent action to reduce CO2 emissions, a major greenhouse gas, the effects would without doubt be devastating. The IPCC confirmed that it is “extremely likely – probability > 95%)” that humans are the dominant cause of global warming since mid-20th century. Climate change will severely challenge the viability of our current state of living and dramatically increase the number of climate refugees and extinct species. The IPCC states that the major impacts of climate change on human health are likely to occur through natural disasters. Already, we are experiencing many unpredictable events caused by climate change, such as the increasing and devastating hurricanes and fast melting of the Artic Sea ice.
Natural disasters are caused by climate change and are the ones that most affect humans. These kill on average 60,00 people per year globally and are responsible for 0.1% of the deaths over the past decades. In the past, droughts and floods were the most fatal disaster events but now-a-days earthquakes are taking the podium. These affect mostly poverty as the poorest countries do not have infrastructure to protect themselves. Even though, the death toll seems to be decreasing over the past century, there were still on average 60,000 deaths over the past decade.
How do we measure Climate Change?
SDG 13 Targets and Indicators
Sustainable Development Goal nº13 aims to solve make communities more resilient against extreme weather conditions in order to reduce damage and death rates during weather hazards. One of the targets is creating better national and international policies and communicating more about climate change and strategies for solutions.
Companies will benefit directly from the introductions of policies in order to control climate change. At the rate that the earth’s temperature is rising, companies will not be able to function as they do in the current days and employees won’t be able to work. Thus, for companies to continue growing it is necessary for companies to fight against climate change.
For every Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) the UN defines targets, that specify the goals and indicators which represent the metrics by that aim to identify if these targets are achieved. SDG 13 has 5 targets and 8 indicators for this SDG.
These focus on strengthening resilience and capacity for adaptation to climate-related hazards and natural disasters by measuring the amount of affected people, considering mortality rates and missing people. As well as measuring countries and governments that have adopted or not risk management strategies in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. Additionally, these have, as an objective, to integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies or plans by measuring the number of countries who have registered with agreements, such as the Paris Agreement, in order to increase their resilience towards climate change impacts and foster low greenhouse gas emissions.
SDG 13 also targets education and awareness-raising regarding the impacts of climate change by mapping the countries who have integrated this into their teaching curricula and the ones who have disclosed the increase of institutional, systemic and individual capacity-building to implement adaptation, mitigation and technology transfer and development actions.
Furthermore, the SDG examines the commitment of developed countries towards the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, setting in motion $100 billion annually, by 2020, towards the Green Climate Fund (GCF), to address the needs of developing countries. Also, it aims to promote mechanisms regarding planning and managing against climate change in the least developed countries and small island developing states, also measuring the number of least developed countries that receive support and what support they receive.
To know more about the targets and indicators, follow this link for the UN website: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal13
In the meantime, according to the data provided by the International Disaster Database, we can observe a significant 99% decrease on deaths caused by natural disaster since 1990, an increase in the score of adaption and implementation of national strategies in line with Sendai Framework, especially in Japan, Costa Rica and Mexico. Additionally, the number of parties taking part in environmental agreements has increased by 36% from 2005 to 2015, the number of local governments adopting risk reduction strategies has remained the same from 2015 to 2018, according to the latest data and lastly, by 2018 the GCF has signed pledges of contributions worth $10.2 billion towards supporting lower-income countries in climate mitigation and adaptation.
All of the data above has been provided by ourworldindata.org.
The Paris Agreement on climate change
The Paris Agreement is a legally binding international treaty on climate change. It was adopted in December 2015 at the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held in Paris, and entered into force in November 2016. At the moment, 189 countries are committing to the targets and working together to adapt to the impacts of climate change. Its main goal is to limit global warming to 2C degrees and achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century.
The implementation of The Paris Agreement requires economic and social transformation and resilience between countries working together on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action. Countries are taking actions into reducing greenhouse gas emissions and building resilience to adapt to impact if rising temperatures. In order to provide support to the countries taking part on this mission, the agreement provides financial assistance, technical schemes and capacity building support for developing countries.
Although there is still a lot of work to be done, experts have noticed positive effects after the implementation of The Paris Agreement. Since its entry has come into force, increasing countries, regions and companies are developing low-carbon solutions and new markets, which are becoming competitive across economic sectors.
The impact of climate change on children
UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake, says “there may be no greater, growing threat facing the world’s children – and their children – than climate change”. As mentioned earlier, at the rate climate change is going, we will observe a severe increase in the frequency of droughts, floods and sever weather events. A big proportion of the people affected are children – nearly 160 million (UNICEF, 2015) live in high drought severity zones and over half a billion live in extremely high flooding zones – Africa presenting the highest numbers with 84 million children at risk. Droughts and water stress present multiple harms on children – such as dehydration diarrhoea, separation from families, homelessness, loss of livestock and lack of safe water, etc – but unfortunately, these characteristics only satisfy a small proportion of the total impacts.
While climate will in future impact every child in one way or another, at the present moment the impact is significant especially in poorest areas in the long-term, by destroying facilities like schools, water, food and sanitation. Additionally, children will suffer more in regard to climate change due to other factor such as, pollution for example, children breathe in at twice the rate of adults, risking pneumonia, asthma, etc. Additionally, the rise in temperature also exacerbates diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and meningitis.
Now is the time for action
As the world’s climate is already changing, we have to prepare for the impacts that are inevitable and already happening. Nevertheless, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and with hard work we will be able to make this better.
Together, with the SDG’s, in particular goal 13, and other worldwide agreements we hope to make the necessary changes in order to promote a better future for us and our children. The joint action of us all will take us on a better path to embark on a low carbon development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prioritizing the needs of nature.
