Saving Resources:
Actions that achieve both climate goals and the SDGs
Unless action on climate change and tackling poverty are urgently aligned, the world risks missing important 2030 targets.
We do not have to choose between tackling the climate crisis and advancing progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): we can do both. We should look to implement one plan that works for both people and planet, and the SDGs provide us with the perfect framework for this.
Recent extreme weather events have vividly shown the consequences of climate change, while the latest UN reports urgently warn that we are missing key targets to slow these consequences. At the same time, the world is slipping on targets for several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and these have been further pushed off course by the global pandemic: the UN reported that during 2020 a further 41 million people became impoverished and 130 million undernourished. Meanwhile, the enormous costs of the Covid-19 pandemic have put tremendous pressure on public resources left to tackle global goals.
But the pandemic has also shown us how important the universal and interconnected SDGs are, and how critical it is for us to increase action towards achieving them, delivering on the commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ by 2030. As we begin to see beyond the pandemic we face an urgent double dilemma: we are missing targets for climate protection and sustainable development and yet there are fewer resources for reaching them.
The good news is that there are many policies and measures that have significant potential to achieve both climate goals and SDGs. If scaled up and applied widely, these actions could provide an efficient way to achieve many global goals and save resources for doing more. This report, co-produced by the University of Sussex, compiles evidence of these policies and measures and outlines the actions that governments, businesses and civil society can take to simultaneously advance both of these important agendas.
“In the last few years, we have seen more and more scenes of climate-related events including flooding in my own constituency in Stafford. At the same time, around the world millions have had their lives disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, pushing back progress on the SDGs. We have a very short window to urgently get back on track and align both these critical agendas if we are to create a healthy, sustainable future for generations to come, both here in the UK and around the world”
— Theo Clarke MP, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) UN Global Goals
Recommendations
National governments should:
Establish mechanisms, such as national commissions or cross-department working groups, to build policy coherence across national implementation of SDG and climate agendas. These mechanisms could include:
Developing a national action plan that brings together strategies on SDGs and climate policies. To develop such a plan, governments should look at harmonising SDG-related Voluntary National Reports (VNRs) with climate-related National Determined Contributions (NDCs), National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and disaster risk reduction strategies. This includes developing a joint set of national targets to ensure coherence across reporting and data collection mechanisms.
For Covid-Recovery Packages they should consider including policies and measures that simultaneously advance both climate goals and SDGs, focusing particularly on reversing the unequal impacts of both Covid and climate change on the most vulnerable communities.
Identifying a set of joint policies with high potential within the national context that achieve both climate goals and SDGs. These can be identified through rapid assessments supported by the scientific community and civil society actors. Governments should consider subjecting proposed policies to a stress test to ensure that they fulfil guidelines for equity and justice.
Adequately financing actions to advance climate goals and SDGs. This includes establishing appropriate parliamentary processes to ensure adequate scrutiny and accountability regarding expenditure on actions to address joint climate-SDG priorities
For those climate and SDG policies that cannot be closely aligned, governments should develop review processes so that climate policies do not undermine SDGs, and aim for development policies which do not a negative impact on climate and environmental policies.
Providing local level government bodies with the skills, resources and autonomy to implement national climate and SDG policy priorities in ways that meet the needs of local communities.
Providing leadership to private sector actors to help them develop practices and processes to reduce their environmental impacts across all relevant SDGs, including climate; and to uphold all social SDGs. This should include developing monitoring systems to ensure businesses adhere to national and international standards on human rights, labour laws and environmental protections.
"The urgent action required to reduce and eliminate carbon emissions must not make our world more unequal. So, we need governments to combine their strategies for climate action with their targets for leaving no-one behind. Governments, businesses and communities working together in the same direction can create truly sustainable development."
— Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) UN Global Goals
To support national governments, the UN should:
Establish a virtual platform and organise activities to share experience and learning between countries on policies and measures that deliver climate goals within the framework of the SDGs. This could include establishing an interagency group to evaluate and catalogue policies that advance both climate goals and SDGs, focusing on the priorities of low- and middle-income states.
Establish mechanisms to streamline and coordinate reporting systems on the SDGs and climate goals to encourage greater coherence across the two frameworks in national reporting.
Businesses should:
Embrace business practices that advance both climate goals and SDGs. They can do so by:
Measuring the social and environmental footprints of their products and supply chains, and then taking actions to reduce these footprints. Among other actions, they could, for example, set emission reduction targets and/or establish programmes to promote gender equality.
Complying with climate and environmental protection standards while upholding human rights. They should also aim to adhere to national regulations and international frameworks such as the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
Civil society organisations and non-government organisations should:
Identify and promote policies and measures within their remit that advance both climate goals and SDGs simultaneously. Furthermore, they should work with government bodies to ensure that joint climate-SDG policies and programmes (and all policies and programmes) provide benefits to marginalised and vulnerable communities.