Energy News Beat
ENB Pub Note: The UN needs to be thrown out of the United States and all funding cut. They have caused the global humanitarian migration crisis and are causing more harm than good.
The EU is lagging behind on sustainable development progress, with lots of ambitious policies in the books but far fewer real-world impacts, according to a new report by a UN-affiliated body.
In 2015, UN countries signed a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to equip countries with a guiding framework to boost prosperity while still protecting humans and the environment.
But a report published today from the UN-affiliated body Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) warns that the EU is missing SDG milestones and is making slower progress in recent years.
It was not meant to be this way.
The EU initially seized on the SGDs, citing them frequently in legal texts and using them for impact assessments. Even researchers seeking EU funding needed to show how their work will serve SDG aims.
The EU Green Deal represented a peak in SDG-based policymaking – at least in theory. The package of laws was designed to deliver economic growth, environmental protection, and social fairness all at the same time.
But in practice, experts say that Europe’s SDG progress has been “a mixed bag.”
While the EU has delivered strong progress on the ‘decent work’ SDG target, it has “much less so on climate action and building partnerships to deliver the goals globally,” according to Taube Van Melkebeke, head of policy at the Green European Foundation.
Several experts contacted by Euractiv pointed the finger squarely at weak implementation, particularly as political winds have shifted away from environmental and social priorities.
“More effort should be done towards ‘walking the talk’,” said Sam Williams at the think tank EPICO. This must include “ensuring implementation at the level of member states.”
He also points at potential tensions between different SDG goals.
While the EU is “relatively” a champion for adhering to SDG targets, according to Williams, it is important that “the focus on economic growth does not undermine, but reinforces, climate, environmental, and social priorities.”
The weak implementation is not entirely the EU’s fault.
“War and geopolitical tensions among major powers impact livelihoods everywhere and represent a major setback for sustainable development in Europe and globally,” said Guillaume Lafortune, the SDNS vice-president of SDSN.
But there is still “potential to fully achieve sustainable development.”
SDSN’s report calls on the EU institutions “to issue a joint political statement this year reaffirming the EU’s commitment to achieving the SDGs.”
Lafortune remains a fan of the Green Deal, too, saying that it “is under attack internally and also domestically.” He urged Europe to “stay very strong on this,” as “the Green Deal is the right vision for Europe.”
The post Sustainable Development Goals great on paper, not in real world appeared first on Energy News Beat.
