Global leaders meet today at the United Nations headquarters in New York to try to right the battered state of the planet. The starting data are not at all encouraging: the world “is very far” from seeing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that world leaders agreed on in 2015 to eradicate poverty and protect the planet. The report that the UN has just presented, prepared by independent scientists, Time of crisis, times of change. Science to accelerate transformations towards sustainable development, concludes that, in 2023, the year that represents the equator for implementing the 2030 Agenda, the situation is “very worrying.” Compared to the last report, from 2019, there has been a decline in some areas, especially those related to extreme poverty and the climate, due to the confluence of multiple crises such as the covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the natural disasters and rising food prices. “The achievement of the SDGs is in danger,” reads the declaration accepted by consensus by world leaders before the meeting and made public this Monday.
Governments around the world will have to make, according to the panel of experts who sign the document, decisions to reverse a diagnosis that they consider very clear: progress is being too slow in some objectives while in others, such as food security, action climate and the protection of biodiversity, “the world is still moving in the wrong direction.” According to the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, only 15% of the objectives have been achieved. Compared to the results of four years ago, there has only been substantial progress in access to mobile networks and internet use. “Without an urgent course correction, humanity will face prolonged periods of crisis and uncertainty caused and reinforced by poverty, inequality, hunger, disease, conflict and disasters,” the scientists warn.
Goal 1, the end of poverty, is far from being achieved. Despite the constant—albeit slow—progress that had been made since 2015, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted all forecasts. The result is that the multiple crises unleashed since 2019 have caused between 75 and 90 million more people to find themselves in a situation of extreme poverty, reaching a figure of 700 million. At the current rate, in 2030 there will still be some 575 million people surviving on less than $2.15 (about two euros) a day.
Something similar happens with objective 2, zero hunger. Between 2019 and 2021, the proportion of the world’s population that is undernourished increased from 8% to 9.8%. The result is that today there are 745 million more people suffering from hunger (moderate to severe) in the world than in 2015. The most affected region, according to the data collected in the report, has been Africa, where around one 20% of the population does not have enough food to feed themselves, 4.4% more than in 2015.
Health and well-being, education and gender equality are other victims of the coronavirus pandemic. Experts place it as one of the main causes of the decrease in life expectancy (from 72.8 years to 71 between 2019 and 2021); of the interruption of childhood vaccination programs (25 million children under one year of age did not receive basic vaccines in the same period) or that some one billion children are at risk of abandoning their studies and that another 100 million do not reach to learn to read after the impact of school closures. “The more time children spend out of school, the more difficult it is for them to return,” emphasizes the panel of experts.
The war in Ukraine has also had serious consequences. In addition to preventing improvements in the eradication of hunger, especially due to the cost of food and fertilizers, it has shaken the labor market. Although Goal 8, decent work and economic growth, continues to evolve, the conflict seriously disrupted economic activity and international trade. Experts predict that “world growth will slow” from 5% in 2021 to 1% at the end of 2023. And although in global figures unemployment has decreased, there are some regions where the figure is higher than that of 2015, such as in Africa sub-Saharan and Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has, in turn, caused a “global energy crisis.” According to the UN report, in an area where progress was being made, that of affordable and clean energy, some 75 million people have lost the ability to afford electricity services and 100 million have been forced to resort to fuel. traditional—and more polluting—such as charcoal for cooking. Overall, the global population with access to electricity had increased by 91% in 2021, but the pace has slowed and some 675 million people, especially in the least developed countries and sub-Saharan Africa, still do not have access.
And this insufficient transition towards cleaner energies is one of the consequences of global warming. According to the latest data from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)the world is already 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer than in pre-industrial times and, if governments do not implement a drastic change of course, this increase will reach 1.5 degrees by the beginning of 2030. “If the goal is not achieved 13 [Acción por el clima] and deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are not guaranteed, dangerous climate change will occur for human beings and all living beings,” the scientists emphasize. As they recall, the consequences of this increase in temperatures are already evident, with “unprecedented sequences of hurricanes, forest fires, floods and thermal stress.” The impact on populations will be devastating: up to 216 million people will be forced to move within their countries, according to IPCC calculations.
For this reason, the authors of the report insist, policies aimed at a change of course are urgent. The slow implementation of the SDGs during the first half of the process towards compliance with the 2030 Agenda has been, precisely, one of the main causes that made countries less prepared for this described scenario of multiple crises, recall the authors of the report. . “High inequality, lack of universal healthcare and inadequate social safety nets left vulnerable groups even more exposed to the myriad health, social and economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, while unequal gender roles They imposed an enormous burden on women,” they warn. On the other hand, those countries that did not invest in agriculture or in the diversification of their energy sources suffered more from the increase in the price of food and fuel. That is to say, if progress towards the 2030 Agenda had been faster, the world would have better faced the crises of the last three years. And now that there are only seven years left until the deadline of the 2030 Agenda is met, Guterres warns, “much more effort, investment and systemic changes” are necessary.
You can follow Future Planet in Twitter, Facebook, instagram and TikTok and subscribe here to our newsletter.
#hunger #poverty #heat #world #Agenda