Climate change could put development goals beyond reach, UN official warns

(Reuters News, 30 Oct 2019) As the planet rapidly heats up, societies seeking to protect the well-being of their people may need to refocus on tougher issues, expert on climate losses says.

As global warming brings wilder weather, more harvest failures and the risk of growing migration and poverty, "sustainable development as we think of it today may be out of reach", a top U.N. specialist in climate change losses warned on Wednesday.

Nations around the world in 2015 agreed to pursue a set of "sustainable development goals" (SDGs) aiming to end poverty and hunger, and provide safe drinking water and affordable clean energy to all, among other targets, by 2030.

But with the planet heating up fast, serious threats - from expanding cities facing rising seas and floods to small islands watching their coral reefs die and water supplies turn salty - mean those "worthy" global goals may no longer be the right focus, said Koko Warner of the U.N. climate change secretariat.

"These (climate) changes out in the world are in some cases unfolding at a pace that's a bit surprising," the economist told a conference on researching climate-related damage at Sweden's Lund University.

With Indonesia already planning to shift its flood-prone capital and other nations grappling with problems such as worsening water shortages, pushing to meet the SDGs could be a matter of "trying to solve the problems of the 20th century" even as grave new 21st-century challenges loom, she said.

Leaders and societies seeking to protect the well-being of their people may need to refocus on tougher issues, she said.

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Reuters News, 30 Oct 2019: Climate change could put development goals beyond reach, UN official warns