International efforts to meet the UN’s nature-focused Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on life below water and on land are falling far short of their 2030 targets, according to a report released on Monday.
Progress on SDGs 14 and 15 is off-track, following global crises affecting all the international goals, said London-based research organisation Force for Good in a report.
SDGs 14 and 15 are among the worst-affected targets where the situation is “particularly urgent” following stagnating progress, the report said. The UN set the SDGs in 2015 with the aim of ensuring a sustainable future by 2030.
“Overall progress on the SDGs has stagnated, with none of the 17 goals expected to be fully achieved by 2030, largely due to geopolitical, economic, and social crises,” the report said.
“After initial progress across key regions and indicators in the years immediately following the SDG’s launch, a succession of … crises around the world have slowed, stalled, or even undone progress on the goals.”
Crises ranging from wars to inflation and natural disasters are exacerbating global instability and straining political, financial, and social systems, it said.
The annual investment gap for biodiversity, food, and agriculture is $600 billion a year, said the report, citing a 2023 estimate from UN Trade and Development.
New challenges for SDGs 14 and 15 have come from the rapid development of some countries such as Brazil and India, although they have made progress against other SDGs on topics such as poverty alleviation and infrastructure, it said.
One of the report’s ‘big ideas’ for creating momentum to close the SDG gap is to accelerate the climate and energy transition, which could help foster a circular economy while promoting biodiversity.
Furthermore, adopting enhanced sustainability accounting and reporting standards can galvanise private sector contributions on sustainability goals, with direct impacts on SDG 14 and 15, it said.
In June, a UN-backed study said $7.4 trillion would need to be invested by 2030 to meet nine nature-related SDGs. However, it also estimated investments would produce returns some 20 times larger.
By Thomas Cox – t.cox@carbon-pulse.com
*** Click here to sign up to our twice-weekly biodiversity newsletter ***
