By Saumu Juma
With challenges such as lack of finance and political will facing most countries globally, most development projects have experienced a failure in their implementation, the United Nations, Deputy Secretary General, Amina Mohammed said during an interview at the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) studio in New York.
“Implementation needs to happen by 2030 not 2050, 2060 or 2070. The finance needs to be here now. There are resources in the world but we need the political will to open them up so that we can find the pipelines or the transitions we are talking about to green,” she said.
Mohammed noted that the office of the UN Secretary General, Anto’nio Guterres has been making efforts to bring all parties together and encouraging voluntary commitments by different countries along with partnerships that will help in financing development projects not only Globally but also at the local level.
“There’s a degree of failure but it is not inevitable. There’s still something that we can do about that and do it together, individually, collectively,” she said noting that the youth are crucial in achieving these targets.
Mohammed added that the world is currently facing a COVID -19 pandemic which has affected a lot of people’s lives in sectors such as education, hunger and an increase in poverty levels because of loss of jobs which has left many countries facing a huge decline in achieving the SDGs with worries on how to cross that line.
She cautioned against seeing the SDGs in silos but viewing them from a multiplier effect perspective with regards to acting on climate change, noting “acting in climate will get us the SDGs and get us closer to the climate goal. That’s the docking station for getting all the SDGs together in a transition.”
Young people have also contributed to implementation of the SDGs by taking up different roles such as climate advocates and activists and empowering other youth in embracing and being part of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, she observed.
Nathan Me`te`nier, member of the UN Secretary General youth advisory group on climate was also part of the dialogue virtually and he explained the importance of the participation of the youth especially in COP26 because it has given them a chance to give out opinions on better ways that can be adapted towards achieving the goals.
“What’s really important is always to remember that all of us were striking, advocating and empowering young people around the world. What we are trying to do is making sure that the next generation of leaders are well empowered on this issue,” Me`te`nier said.
“This is why it is so important that key philanthropic actors, foundations, the UN invest in their youth because we really need to make sure that we have diversity presented in the leaders in the next 10-15 years to make sure that the climate action retrieved is made by the people who are experiencing first-hand the impact of the climate crisis.”
Climate action as part of the SDGs is really connected and according to the Paris Agreement, the world is supposed to try and hit the 1.5 degree temperature by reducing the effect of greenhouse gas emissions.
Dia Mirza, SDG Advocate and UN Environment Programme Goodwill Ambassador for India sees the importance of climate action to the environment especially with India being the third largest source of methane emissions.
“My biggest priority is climate action because I believe that climate action has to be the center of all focus because without climate action, we cannot achieve any of the other goals. It’s now also about achieving human rights and how can we possibly have social justice without climate justice? How can we have human rights without climate rights? And how can we achieve any of our goals if the inequalities continue to be widened because of climate inaction?,” she said.
