Do you know anything about whether or not the EU has made any progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals since they were established in 2015? Have you heard or read anything about this in the news or discussed this question as part of your studies?
The Europe Commission made year 2014 directive regarding non-financial reporting. Non-financial reporting was implemented in Finnish law late 2017. The non-financial reports can help EU reach some of the SDGs by 2030. The main goals that the non-financial reports help with are below water, SDG 13 – climate actions, SDG 14 – life, SDG 15 – life on land and to some degree SDG - 5 gender equality. The EU has also a long-term strategy to reach an economy with net zero gas emissions. We can already see that all countries of the EU has a set goal for when they want to reach a carbon emission free society, and we also see that we’re moving toward a society that’s to use more sustainable and renewable energy sources to fuel the cities of the modern world. SDG 17 Partnerships for the goals: For Europe Union to achieve the SDG 17 goal they need to establish relations and partnerships not only between governments, but also with the private sector, civil society and other parties. Europe Union has established relation with organisations like UN, WHO, WWF and universities among others. EU has established relation with universities through there Horizon programs. We see the collaboration UN through the COP seminars, and the collaboration WHO we can see through who EU and the rest of the world handled the COVID pandemic. The collaboration with WWF can be seen through SDG goals 12 through 14 and which laws and directives that has arisen to preserve the environment. To summarize the factors that will impact SDG 17 are how well organisations can interconnect and collaborate with each other and work together to achieve the set goals. Another factor that impacts the success of SDG 17 is the funds that’s available for different projects. To achieve all of the SDG 17 goals UN and EU needs to build new bridge and connect with many different entities which in turn need to do the same in their country.
Which goals do you think will be easier to achieve and which ones are more difficult? Why? What factors could affect this?
The three easiest SDGs to achieve through collaboration are SDG 14 and SDG 7. SDG 14 is one of the easier SDGs to achieve because the necessary actions are clear and concrete. To achieve the amount of waste and plastic that is poured out into our water needs be reduced, and more counties needs to set fishing regulations and quotas to not of set the balance in the ecosystem. The amount of protected marine areas and giving people knowledge about the ecosystem could help with achieving SDG 14. In addition, the development of water cleaning system, and storage of polluted water and toxic material needs to be improved. The plastic industry and the methods of plastic production also needs to be improved upon to achieve SDG 14. At the same time there are a lot of small villages which main livelihood is fishing. Another factor, which affects our seas and oceans, are all the farms in the world that uses different manures, chemicals and pesticides that washes out to the sea with the rain. A third factor is that people lack knowledge about ecosystem and what happens when it’s damaged. Manures, chemicals and pesticides that washes out to the sea with the rain will have negative impact through a eutrophication and acidification. An increase of the acidity and eutrophication can result in that some species stop existing in biotope.
SDG 7 Affordable and clean energy is an easier goal to achieve because we have the technology to produce clean energy to a great degree under the correct conditions. The main factors that are we humans from achieving SDG 7 or getting closer to the end are: we are living in a finite world with limited resources, we cannot control the weather and setting up solar panels, wind power plants, nuclear power plants and waterpower plants in some areas might have a divesting consequence on the environment. That is why more research needs to be done in the field of clean and renewable energy.
The two hardest SDGs to achieve are SDG 5 and SDG 12.
The main challenge to achieve SDG 12 is that the current technologies aren’t good enough to mitigate all negative effects from different emissions, and to uses the resources to their full potential. Another challenge that is people aren’t aware enough how much damage our planet has taken nor where the breaking points is at the moment. The last challenge is to find sustainable substitutes for resources that are limited on planet or dangerous for the environment.
To achieve SDG 12 the world needs shift towards a more sustainable and circular approach regarding consumption and production. If the shift towards a more sustainable and circular approach regarding consumption is possible, we could also reduce the amount of food that goes to waste in each country. This approach could be a stepping stone to achieve SDG 1 and SDG 12 at the same time.
SDG 5 is maybe the hardest to achieve among the SDGs. The reason for this is that in some culture’s women lack decision-making power and education at a higher level. To achieve SDG 5 the world needs to realize that both genders are worth equally, the amount of child marriage and female genital mutilation needs to decrease with a significant degree. The factors that are stopping us from achieving SDG 5: women legal rights are in some countries weak or non-existing, the cultural differences between west and east and the amount of economic resources that’s available to improve women’s standing and rights.