The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019
Four years after signing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, countries have taken action to integrate the Goals and targets into their national development plans and to align policies and institutions behind them. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2019 uses the latest available data to track global progress on the SDGs and to take stock of how far we have come in realizing our commitments.
The report shows that, while advances have been made in some areas, monumental challenges remain. The evidence and data spotlight areas that require urgent attention and more rapid progress to realize the 2030 Agenda’s far-reaching vision. Member States agree that these challenges and commitments are interrelated and call for integrated solutions. It is therefore imperative to take a holistic view of the 2030 Agenda and to identify the highest impact areas in order to target interventions.
The most urgent area for action is climate change. If we do not cut record-high greenhouse gas emissions now, global warming is projected to reach 1.5°C in the coming decades. As we are already seeing, the compounded effects will be catastrophic and irreversible: increasing ocean acidification, coastal erosion, extreme weather conditions, the frequency and severity of natural disasters, continuing land degradation, loss of vital species and the collapse of ecosystems.
These effects, which will render many parts of the globe uninhabitable, will affect the poor the most. They will put food
production at risk, leading to widespread food shortages and hunger, and potentially displace up to 140 million people by 2050. The clock for taking decisive actions on climate change is ticking.
