Science-based targets offer concrete guidance for global sustainable development
This is an overview of the article by van Vurren et al., Defining a sustainable development target space for 2030 and 2050 . Published in One Earth February 1, 2022.
In 2015, the United Nations (UN) adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): 17 goals, 169 targets, and 232 indicators to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy equality, peace, and prosperity. Six years and a pandemic later, the 17 SDGs are far from on track, with progress in some areas reversed. The lack of progress is primarily due to a critical gap in scientific understanding regarding how to achieve 17 complex and interrelated goals simultaneously. This is further complicated by the fact that action in one SDG can detrimentally affect progress in another.
Scenario analysis – a scientific method commonly used to identify greenhouse gas emission reduction pathways in climate science – could help identify viable pathways to implement the SDGs that minimize trade-offs between goals and maximize co-benefits. However, before a quantitative analysis of different pathways can be performed, a clear picture of the desired end goal is needed, and the current 169 targets and 232 indicators associated with the 17 SDGs are too broad, unstructured, complex, and not always science based.
In this study , the authors propose a streamlined set of 36 science-based indicators and associated target values that are quantifiable and actionable to make scenario analysis meaningful, relevant, and simple enough to be transparent and communicable. It provides an initial framework to guide analyses of how to achieve the SDGs simultaneously, enabling the scientific community to work together on this endeavor and to start from a set of comparable and internally consistent assumptions.
Q&A with the authors of the study
Q: Why is it important that the 17 UN SDGs are achieved simultaneously?
"By adopting the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, countries worldwide expressed their commitment to achieving all 17 SDGs as an integral set. Obviously, it does not make much sense to prioritize environmental over social or economic objectives or the other way around. One reason for this is that they are related. Achieving the goal of zero hunger will depend on achieving the goal of dealing with climate change. Otherwise, certainly in the longer term, climate impacts would threaten food security. Similar relationships also exist between other SDGs, sometimes in the form of synergies but sometimes trade-offs. Improper use of bioenergy to reduce climate risks, for instance, could lead to loss of biodiversity. Quantitative scenarios analyzing different pathways to achieve the SDGs are urgently needed to get a more concrete idea of what is needed."
Q: How important are science-based targets in guiding efforts to achieve the UN SDGs?
"In the past few years, progress towards achieving the SDGs has been limited. Science can help by showing the need to achieve these goals, unpin the actual targets, and show concrete pathways on how to achieve them. This will be critical in mobilizing policymakers and other actors for action. Earlier, science has played a very similar role for climate change, showing the urgency, the possible thresholds, and concrete pathways available to make the required transition. Science-based targets can play a similar role in achieving the UN SDGs, trying to define safe and fair levels for each goal."
Q: What are your hopes for the future use of the targets formulated in this article?
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“We recently looked at the existing literature on scenarios showing pathways towards achieving the SDGs. This showed that very few scenarios exist that explore achieving a large set of SDGs. Moreover, the existing scenarios use different targets, indicators, and methods and are, therefore, almost impossible to compare. This strongly contrasts with climate research, where there are clearly defined targets and even common scenario databases. This allows direct support of the policymaking, leading, for instance, to the net-zero targets for 2050 of many countries. I therefore strongly hope that the target space paper for SDGs can play a role in ensuring that we reach a similar situation for SDGs. Hopefully, the paper can encourage different researchers to work on model-based scenarios and provide information that can be more readily compared by using the paper. If more people use the paper, it can also become a living document in which the targets are regularly updated based on new insights.”
About the author
Detlef van Vuuren, PhD, is a senior researcher at PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and a professor in Integrated Assessment of Global Environmental Change at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. His research focuses on developing model-based scenarios to explore response strategies to global sustainability issues, in particular, climate change. As such, he leads the Integrated Model to Assess the Global Environment (IMAGE) team. IMAGE is a computer model that simulates environmental consequences of human activities by integrating land, energy, climate, and policy models in one framework. Dr. van Vuuren has published more than 360 articles in peer-reviewed journals including high-profile journals such as Nature and Science. He is among the few people worldwide listed as most highly cited researchers in three different disciplines.