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Expert Group to Prepare Report Analysing Climate and SDG Synergies, Aiming to Maximize Action Impact

An international group of fourteen experts from diverse backgrounds has been co-convened by UN DESA and UNFCCC secretariat in May 2023 to prepare a report building the evidence base for how action tackling both the climate emergency and sustainable development challenges synergistically can be a win-win solution, maximizing impact.

The initial report will be launched in September 2023 on the margins of the UN SDG Summit, marking the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Climate Action Summit being convened by the UN Secretary-General in support of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. These two critical global agendas are both far off-track.

The most recent UN Sustainable Development Goals Report showed that "years or even decades of development progress have been halted or reversed" as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and other global crises, and called for an "urgent rescue effort" for the SDGs. The recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed that the window is fast closing to make a course correction and limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as called for under the Paris Agreement, to avoid the worst impacts.

"The 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement together provide a clear vision for tackling today's most oppressing challenges. We must leverage all our means to advance joint up action that will shape mutually reinforcing solutions to our environmental emergencies and developmental dilemmas"

said Mr. Li Junhua, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

"All the SDGs are deeply intertwined and interconnected. Progress on all SDGs is impacted by what we achieve in regard to the single SDG. If we fail on addressing climate change, other SDGs will be unachievable"

said Mr. Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The report was called for as a recommendation of the Third Global Conference on Strengthening Synergies between the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, held in 2022 in Tokyo, Japan. The Expert Group on Climate and SDG Synergies, drawn from academia, civil society, and international organizations is being convened and supported by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA) and UN Climate Change (UNFCCC). The members of the expert group are shown below.