The Age of Sustainable Development" gives students an understanding of the key challenges and pathways to sustainable development - that is, economic development that is also socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable.
The proposal for SDGs at Rio+20
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From the course by Columbia University
The Age of Sustainable Development
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From the lesson
The SDGs
Professor Sachs recounts the history of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and describes what is necessary to achieve them.
Meet the Instructors
Jeffrey Sachs
Director, Earth Institute; Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development; Professor of Health Policy and Management
[MUSIC]
What to do?
The world has a major problem, and
that is that we are way off course in our goal of achieving sustainable development.
We've had a 40-year run so far,
dating back to the first global conference on the environment and
development in Stockholm in 1972.
And the simultaneous publication of Limits to Growth which correctly pointed out for
the world that the challenge of combining economic development and
environmental sustainability was still an unmet challenge, and an unmet conundrum.
How can this be done?
20 years later the world met at the Rio Earth Summit and
adopted three major treaties that we've discussed on climate change,
on biological diversity, and on combating desertification.
20 years later, in June 2012, the world met for
a third time on these great issues.
Leaders came together from all over the world and took stock.
And what they realized was a very unsettling and
powerful set of truths.
On the one side, all of the evidence pointed out that the diagnosis
first made back in 1972 was fundamentally correct that
the problem of combining economic growth, with social inclusion,
and especially environmental sustainability
was a challenge that was so
far unaddressed and getting worse.
Second, they concluded that the major actions which were hailed at
the time as historic breakthroughs at the Earth Summit in 1992 had not succeeded.
I've already noted on several occasions the three Fs
on the report card given by Nature Magazine to the Earth Summit.
The F for climate change, the F on biological diversity,
the F given on the treaty on combating desertification,
not one of them delivered as promised.
So with that in mind, world leaders at the Rio+20 summit
in June 2012 resolved once again to join this battle.
And that's where we are today.
What are we to do with the world that is going in one direction
with very strong momentum?
Some good of economic growth spreading to many places of poverty
being reduced in many parts of the world, but a lot that is seriously awry and
getting more and more dangerous, high inequality.
Some parts of the world still trapped in extreme poverty and
cycles of violence and poverty and hunger and disease.
And with the growing crisis of the global environment,
whether it is climate change,
the sixth major extinction of species on the planet,
the dangers to our cities of pollution, overcrowding,
lack of infrastructure, we now need, as the leaders
realized at Rio+20, a new and dramatic approach.
Well, what did they put on offer?
How should the world respond?
The first thing the world leaders said is, we absolutely must not give up.
And quoting from the final outcome document of
the conference called The Future We Want, the world leaders said, and
I quote, we commit ourselves to reinvigorating the global partnership for
sustainable development that we launched in Rio in 1992.
We recognized the need to impart new momentum
to our cooperative pursuit of sustainable development.
And commit to work together with major groups and other stakeholders such as
business, NGOs, universities in addressing the implementation gaps.
They also noted something very important.
And that is that the most urgent task of all in all of the interconnected
challenges of sustainable development, of economic development, of social inclusion,
of environment sustainability is the task that the world did take
on in the year 2000 when world leaders adopted the Millennium Development Goals,
and that is the fight against extreme poverty.
We've talked a lot about extreme poverty.
We should recall why it is the highest priority, the most urgent priority.
And that's because it is a matter of life and
death in the absolute present conditions.
One can even define extreme poverty as a condition in which
survival is a daily struggle.
Remember the people living in extreme poverty
are wondering where their next meal will come from, whether the next drink of
water will carry pathogens that could threaten their lives,
whether the next bite of a mosquito might transmit malaria to them.
In other words, the challenges of extreme poverty are here and now, and
life and death.
And since 7 million children are dying every year before their fifth
birthday of conditions that are either completely preventable or,
if not completely preventable, essentially fully treatable,
we have this crisis,
the opportunity, the moral challenge in front of us.
And so when the world leaders met at Rio+20,
they also noted right at the beginning of the future we want something that I
regard as completely correct.
They said and I quote, eradicating poverty is the greatest global challenge facing
the world today and an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.
Unless we tackle the end of extreme poverty, we're not going to
complete the challenges on the other aspects of sustainable development either.
Quote, in this regard we are committed to free humanity from poverty and
hunger as a matter of urgency.
We reaffirm our commitment to making every effort to accelerate
the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals,
including the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
So in 2012 the world leaders said we have three years left
of the 15-year period on the Millennium Development Goals.
Let's use those to accelerate progress.
Let's remember that the Millennium Development Goals called for cutting
extreme poverty by half, something already accomplished if we take the developing
countries as a group, but not accomplished country by country, or region by region.
And so a lot of work left to do to 2015.
But then continuing on after 2015 to complete the job.
Now here's where I think the leaders made the single most important step at RIO+20.
They said, and I quote, we recognize that the development of goals could also be
useful for pursuing focused and coherent action on sustainable development.
In other words, they looked at the millennium development goals,
said that was pretty good.
That helped to mobilize world efforts on fighting poverty.
We need a similar approach on mobilizing world efforts
on sustainable development in all of it's complexity.
And I quote, we further recognize the importance and
utility of a set of sustainable development goals, or SDG's.
These goals should address and incorporate, in a balanced way,
all three dimensions of sustainable development and their interlinkages.
I would summarize as saying that the world leaders agreed to make the transition from
MDGs to SDGs, from millennium development goals to sustainable development goals.
Taking a leaf from the millennium development goals,
the world leaders also made some points about what these new SDGs should be.
And, I quote again from The Future We Want,
we also underscore that SDGs should be action-oriented,
concise, and easy to communicate, limited in number, aspirational,
global in nature and universally applicable to all countries,
while taking into account different national realities, capacities and
levels of development in respecting national policies and priorities.
We also recognize that the goals should address and
be focused on priority areas for the achievement of sustainable development,
being guided by this outcome document, the future we want.
Governments should drive implementation,
with he active involvement of all relevant stakeholders as appropriate.
Well, here you have it.
What I think is a potentially historic decision to
move to a new global agenda with a set of universally
applicable sustainable development goals, and
to have those goals help guide the world, rich and
poor countries alike, in a new era, giving new impetus,
new power new social mobilization, new resources,
new political will, to a challenge that's been
more than 40 years somehow in our awareness,
20 years under international law, but
to date not successfully causing a change of direction for the world.
Now in the outcome of Rio plus 20 and the call for putting sustainable
development at the very core of the international development agenda.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon honored me and gave me a good challenge also,
which was to help create a global network of problem solving,
and I mentioned before, this new, sustainable development solutions network.
The idea that we need, not only new goals, new political
motivation and will, but we need an era of intensive problem solving.
The kind that we've been discussing In each of the areas of health,
and education, sustainable agriculture, sustainable cities,
sustainable energy systems.
Conservation of biological diversity and all the rest.
The SDSN, guided by its leadership council,
took on a challenge to advise the United Nations and the secretary general in
particular on what new sustainable development goals might be,
because these will be negotiated to the year 2015 and then the operational beyond.
So, the sustainable development solutions network proposed a concise
set of ten goals that could be a framework of action.
These are an illustration of course,
because the government's meeting in the United Nations, in the General Assembly,
will ultimately be the ones to choose the goals, but I want to
discuss what the STSN proposed, because I think that it shows
the power, the range, and the kind of orientation that the SDGs
should have and can have to guide us after the year 2015.
So the SDSN group said ten goals maximum,
and I think that that's a reasonable number.
It's pretty hard to get all of the objectives of the economic development,
social inclusion, environmental sustainability, and
good government within a list of ten goals.
But to have more than that would take away the concise power of a limited,
clear, easily understandable set of universal goals.
So here are the ten proposed by the sustainable development solutions network.
Goal number one, end extreme poverty including hunger.
And the more specific definition is, end extreme poverty in all it's forms,
in other words, complete the millennium development goals,
including hunger, child stunting, malnutrition, and
food insecurity, and give special support to highly vulnerable countries.
The basic idea of goal number one, and it's goal number one not by accident
because it is the highest priority, is to complete the task started
by the Millennium Development Goals, of ending extreme poverty.
Now one thing to keep in mind, the World Bank, in its leadership group,
voted in 2013 to take on this specific objective for
the bank to contribute to ending extreme poverty by the year 2030.
So the idea that completing the millennium development goals in the sense
of ending extreme poverty in all its forms: income, hunger, disease,
lack of access to basic infrastructure,
can be accomplished by our generation is becoming official policy.
SDG number two, achieve development within planetary boundaries.
Now this ought to make sense by now.
It says in the subtitle, all counties have a right to development that respects
planetary boundaries, ensures sustainable production and consumption patterns,
and helps to stabilize the global population by mid-century.
So the idea is to give support to continued economic growth,
especially in the developing countries.
To give support to convergence that developing countries and
developed countries should converge in living standards,
by the developing countries being able to raise their living standards.
But for this to happen within the planetary boundaries.
And we know, through all of our discussions that, that means changes in
the way that we use energy, produce energy, changes in the way that food is
grown, changes in the way that cities are designed and built and so forth.
SDG number three, ensure effective learning for all children and
for youth For their lives and their livelihoods.
So this is the education goal.
It is not stated simply as children in school, though that's important.
It's stated as effective learning so that children are imparted with the skills
that they need to be productive, [COUGH] to be fulfilled in their lives,
to be good citizens, and to be able to find decent jobs.
We know that as technology is changing the pathways to
decent work also require decent skills and good education.
And SDG 3, as recommended by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network,
puts the focus on that.
SDG 4, achieve gender equality, social inclusion and human rights for all.
The point is clear.
We know that sustainable development rests on one core dimension of justice,
fairness, social inclusion and social mobility.
And we've seen that gender discrimination, discrimination against minority groups,
discrimination against indigenous populations,
are huge barriers to full participation in economic life and
to a life satisfaction that is attainable if
we honor human rights, if we live up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
SDG number 5, again, as recommended by the Sustainable Environment Solutions Network.
Achieve health and wellbeing at all ages.
So the subtitle of this is to achieve universal health coverage
at every stage of life,
with particular emphasis on primary health services including reproductive health.
To ensure that all people receive quality health services without suffering
financial hardship.
All countries will also promote policies to help individuals to make healthy and
sustainable decisions regarding diet, physical activity and
other individual or social dimensions of health.
We saw that it is possible to reduce child mortality dramatically,
to reduce maternal mortality dramatically, to raise life expectancy,
to control many diseases at very, very low cost.
SDG number 6, improve agricultural systems and raise rural productivity.
And in the more elaborate statement it says, improve farming practices,
rural infrastructure, and access to resources for
food production to increase the productivity of agriculture, livestock and
fisheries, raise smallholder income, reduce environmental impacts,
promote rural prosperity, and ensure resilience to climate change.
We saw the challenges facing smallholder farmers.
We've seen the problems of depletion of freshwater,
depletion of fisheries, the impacts of climate change.
The need to create new technology-based and
information-based systems for smallholder farmers.
To help raise the most impoverished of these families out of poverty and
to ensure that farm systems are resilient to the changes that are coming and
more productive.
So SDG 6 recognizes the centrality of sustainable agriculture and,
as part of that, the sustainability of the food supply.
SDG 7, empower inclusive, productive and resilient cities.
With the longer statement to make all cities socially inclusive,
economically productive, environmentally sustainable, secure and
resilient to climate change and other risks.
Develop participatory, accountable, and
effective city governance to support rapid and equitable urban transformation.
We've talked a lot about the urban challenge, and we have seen,
using the illustration of New York City, how cities can plan in detail for
their sustainability on many dimensions.
And the recommended SDG 7
calls on cities all over the world to take on this challenge.
SDG 8, curb human-induced climate change and ensure sustainable energy.
Clear.
And the longer statement of this goal is to curb greenhouse
gas emissions from energy, industry, agriculture, the built environment, and
land use change to ensure a peak of global CO2 emissions by 2020 and
to head off the rapidly growing dangers of climate change.
To promote sustainable energy for all.
We know that we need to cut, approximately by half, world emissions
by 2050 even as the world economy grows perhaps three-fold between now and then.
This means the decarbonization of the energy system while at the same time
ensuring that electricity and modern energy services are available for all.
A huge challenge, it can be done, but
it will require much faster action than we have been taking to date.
Goal number 9, secure ecosystem services and
biodiversity, and ensure good management of water and other natural resources.
With the text saying that biodiversity, marine and terrestrial ecosystems
of local, regional and global significance should be inventoried, in other words,
measured, managed and monitored to ensure the continuation of resilient and
adaptive life support systems.
And to support sustainable development.
Water and other natural resources are managed sustainably and
transparently to support inclusive economic and human development.
In other words, biodiversity, maintaining ecosystem services,
maintaining the biodiversity that is vital for the functioning of ecosystems.
And goal number 10, transform governance for sustainable development.
The public sector business and
other stakeholders should commit to good governance including transparency,
accountability, access to information, participation,
an end to tax and secrecy havens and efforts to stamp out corruption.
The international rules governing international finance, trade,
corporate reporting, technology and intellectual property
should be made consistent with achieving the sustainable development goals.
The financing of poverty reduction and global public goods,
including efforts to head off climate change, should be strengthened and
based on a graduated set of global rights and responsibilities.
Bottom line, ten goals to orient the world in clear,
specific ways, measurable ways, concise and understandable ways,
so that the world can make the shift from our business as usual and increasingly
dangerous course to a trajectory of sustainable development for all.
These are the recommendations of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
It's up to the world's governments, following the mandate given
at the Rio+20 summit, to choose the sustainable development goals and
set a sustainable development agenda for the post-2015 period.
To make the transition from MDGs to SDGs.
Can these SDGs be achieved?
Can this huge effort succeed?
Let's take a look.
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