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Ban Ki-moon: this is an historic turning point for our world
03/08/2015
UN agrees to end poverty for all
Members agree new sustainable development goals
Adam Duckett
THE UN’s 193 member states have agreed sustainability goals for the next 15 years aimed at ending poverty for all and combating climate change.
Diplomats cheered the conclusion of the deal on Sunday, bringing to an end two years of negotiations. States have agreed 17 new sustainable development goals, which will be formally adopted by world leaders at a UN meeting in New York in September.
UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said the agreement “encompasses a universal, transformative and integrated agenda that heralds an historic turning point for our world.”
The 17 sustainable goals and 169 targets take aim at systemic barriers to sustainable development, including inequality, unsustainable consumption and production patterns, inadequate infrastructure and lack of decent jobs.
The new targets build on the eight Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 which have helped lift more than 700m people out of poverty as well as address issues related to hunger, disease, and access to water and sanitation, the UN said in a statement.
It’s expected that the environmental portion of the deal will help build momentum ahead of crucial UN climate meetings in Paris in December.
Last month, IChemE co-signed a climate communiqué demanding that governments demonstrate leadership by embracing “appropriate policy and technological responses” in the face of the substantial risks of human-driven climate change.
