Experts, leaders agree on key ways to mobilize accelerated action for climate, sustainable development

With the urgency of climate action at an all-time high, global experts and leaders meeting in Copenhagen identified key immediate action areas to better serve both the world’s efforts to achieve the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure better lives for all people.

Nearly 400 participants from around the world came together for the first Climate and SDGs Synergy Conference—formally the “Global Conference on Strengthening Synergies between the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”—and agreed that a stronger connection between the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides the world’s best opportunity for positive, systemic change that will ensure a sustainable and inclusive development in a healthy environment for present and future generations.

Participants from developed and developing nations, including government representatives, youth, and members of the private sector, academia, civil society and the UN system, attended the conference, organized by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), UN Climate Change and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate.

Attendees provided inputs to the outcome document, which will inform the in-depth review of SDG 13 on climate action at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York in July. They highlighted the opportunities, advantages and gains being made through cooperative implementation of climate action and the SDGs, including through better integration of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) into the Paris Agreement, processes to formulate and implement national climate adaptation plans (NAPs), and the voluntary national reviews (VNRs) at HLPF.

Participants discussed several new multi-stakeholder partnerships aiming to protect forests and the ocean, and boost efforts supporting sustainable energy.

Furthermore, young people at the Copenhagen conference made it clear that they stand ready to cooperate on efforts to achieve the SDGs and Paris Agreement—and in fact, are leading their own.

Original source: UNFCCC
Published on 03 April 2019