SDG 13: Climate Action

Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13 or Global Goal 13) is the United Nations Global Goal to limit and adapt to climate change. It is one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The official mission statement of this goal is to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. SDG 13 and SDG 7 on clean energy are closely related and complementary.

SDG 13 has five targets which are to be achieved by 2030. They cover a wide range of issues surrounding climate action. The first three targets are outcome targets. The first target is to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity towards climate change-related disasters. The second target is to integrate climate change measures into policies and planning. The third target is to build knowledge and capacity. The remaining two targets are means of implementation targets. These include implementing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and to promote mechanisms to raise capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management. Along with each target, there are indicators that provide a method to review the overall progress of each target. The UNFCCC is the main intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming “well under 2°C”. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) by the end of the century.

As of 2020, many countries are now implementing their national climate change adaptation plans. SDG 13 intends to take urgent action in order to combat climate change and its impacts. Many climate change impacts are already felt at the current 1.2 °C (2.2 °F) level of warming. Additional warming will increase these impacts and can trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming “well under 2 °C”. However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) by the end of the century.

Reducing emissions requires generating electricity from low-carbon sources rather than burning fossil fuels. This change includes phasing out coal and natural gas fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, and reducing energy use.

The rise in anthropogenic Green House Gas (GHG) emissions has caused global warming and increased frequency of extreme weather events: droughts, floods, heat waves and storms. Climate change is affecting all, more so the poor and vulnerable. Climate change impacts have caused food, health and disaster emergencies and led to deaths of millions across the world. There are also blame game happening between developed and developing countries on the issue of climate justice – who is responsible for this. Nonetheless, all are fighting it out jointly as a result of international forums and agreements such as United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Countries and institutions have initiated climate mitigation and adaptation measures and climate finance support for the developing and vulnerable countries. Countries and businesses are aiming for Net Zero carbon regime. In this respect, SDG 13 calls for urgent action to combat climate change and its adverse impacts across the world.

Targets	Indicator(s)
13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate- related hazards and natural disasters in all countries	13.1.1 Number of deaths, missing persons and directly affected persons attributed to disasters per 100,000 population   13.1.2 Number of countries that adopt and implement national disaster risk reduction strategies in line with the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030   13.1.3 Proportion of local governments that adopt and implement local disaster risk reduction strategies in line with national disaster risk reduction strategies
13.2 Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning	13.2.1 Number of countries with nationally determined contributions, long-term strategies, national adaptation plans and adaptation communications, as reported to the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change   13.2.2 Total greenhouse gas emissions per year
13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning	13.3.1 Extent to which (i) global citizenship education and (ii) education for sustainable development are mainstreamed in (a) national education policies; (b) curricula; (c) teacher education; and (d) student assessment
13.a Implement the commitment undertaken by developed- country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible	13.a.1 Amounts provided and mobilized in United States dollars per year in relation to the continued existing collective mobilization goal of the $100 billion commitment through to 2025
13.b Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing States, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities	13.b.1 Number of least developed countries and small island developing States with nationally determined contributions, long-term strategies, national adaptation plans and adaptation communications, as reported to the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

Custodian agencies
Custodian agencies are in charge of reporting on the following indicators:

• Indicators 13.1.1, 13.1.2 and 13.1.3: UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).
• Indicator 13.2.1: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization-Institute for Statistics (UNESCO-UIS).
• Indicators 13.3.1, 13.a.1 and 13.b.1: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Links with other SDGs
Sustainable Development Goal 13 connects with the other 16 SDGs. For example, increasing access to sustainable energy (SDG 7) will reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Combating climate change can improve agricultural yield which will lead to zero hunger (SDG 2).

Organizations
United Nations organizations

• Climate target
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Conferences of the Parties (COP)
• World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
• UN-Habitat
• United Nations Environment Program (UNEP)
• Green Climate Fund (GCF)
• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 
• United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

Significance of SDG 13: Climate Change Issues and Impacts
The UN SDGs are the goals and actions that respond to myriad of global problems and pressing challenges to be solved by the world community by 2030. Among these 17 goals, SDG 13 corresponds to climate action. It aims to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (UN 2015). According to UN³ “climate change is affecting every country in the world. It is disrupting national economies and affecting lives and livelihoods, especially for the most vulnerable”. The climate crisis continues to remain unabated and the rising GHG emissions require countries to transition towards carbon neutrality which is a big challenge. Also associated to it are key issues such as climate justice, adaptation and mitigation actions and challenges, the financial shortage, local and urban climate problems, cases of environmental refugees, and impact of climate change on women and children. All these issues and problems need urgent attention and should be resolved holistically by the world community.

SDG 13 also has complicated interactions, inter-linkages and correlations with other SDGs leading to synergies and trade-offs. The Global Sustainable Development Report finds significant relationship between SDG 13 and SDGs 14 and 15 (GSDR 2019). According to Fonseca et al. (2020), SDG 13 has weak positive correlation with SDG 6, SDG 12 and SDG 15 and insignificant correlation with SDG 17. Analysis by Fuso Nerini et al. (2019) shows that climate change can undermine 16 SDGs, while combating climate change can reinforce all 17 SDGs but can undermine SDG 12. Further, extreme, and unpredicted events such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and inter-country war like Ukraine­ Russia war may further derail the agenda of global climate action.

– Climate Justice
Climate justice is a key issue that is repeatedly discussed in international forums and the global climate change debates including the annual Conference of Parties (COP). It primarily talks about fair division, and equitable distribution of benefits and burdens and the associated responsibilities to deal with climate change. According to the UN4, “The impacts of climate change will not be borne equally or fairly, between rich and poor, women and men, and older and younger generations”. For example, poor and low-income communities are at higher risks because of climate impacts such as air pollution, floods, wildfires, and severe heat conditions.

The term is also regularly raised by low income and developing countries asking developed countries to take responsibility towards historical territorial carbon dioxide emissions while pointing to UNFCCC’s key principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective Capabilities (CBDR­ RC) that acknowledges the different capabilities and differing responsibilities of individual countries in addressing climate change.

As developing countries grow and prosper, their per capita emissions are bound to rise, and they might aim at developed country’s per capita income as benchmark citing their right and fair share (Mott et al. 2021). However, in global interest, the developed and developing countries both need to accelerate their pace of CO2 emission reduction with developed countries coming forward to provide technical and financial support to developing countries to transition towards low carbon development.

– Climate Change Connection to Women and Children
Climate change and its effects have severe impact globally, but marginalized groups like women and children who are majorly poor and highly dependent on natural resources are adversely exposed to specific calamities (UNFPA 2021). According to UNDP, during a climate disaster, chances of women and children’s death is 14 times higher compared to men. Estimates by UNICEF5 shows that, “approximately 1 billion children are at an ‘extremely high risk’ of the impacts of the climate crisis”.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA 2021) has outlined five ways in which climate change impacts women and girls:

More gender-based violence: women in search of water and fuelwood etc. travel far and unfamiliar vulnerable territories. Case of sex trafficking spiked after cyclones in Asia pacific region; domestic violence and sexual abuse increased after drought in Uganda, and after floods in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Rise in child marriages: extreme climate events disrupt livelihood and increase poverty levels. This encourages families to marry their daughters early for a price and with belief that it will reduce one member to feed. Such practices are prevalent in several disaster affected poor areas in countries like Malawi, Indonesia, India among others.

Stillbirth: There have been some research showing (though debatable) that extreme heat events led to negative birth outcomes.

Impacts neonatal and maternal outcomes: climate change exacerbates vector borne disease and illnesses such as Zika virus, malaria, and dengue and was associated with cases of miscarriage, anaemia, and pre-mature births.

Disruption of sexual health and access to contraception: Evidence from climate disaster events and recent learning’s from COVID 19 pandemic shows that in case of emergencies, sexual health services and rights are often curtailed leading to large number of displaced women and girls with unintended pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections and diseases.

– Climate Mitigation and Adaptation
To address global climate change issues, climate mitigation and adaptation policies and programmes are crucial for developed as well as developing economies. Addressing climate change primarily involves two approaches:

1. Climate mitigation: It is a process aimed at reducing emissions and controlling the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. For example, replacing polluting fuels such as coal and oil with renewable energy sources such as solar PV, transitioning from combustion vehicles to electrical vehicles.
2. Climate adaptation: It is the process of adapting to the climate change that has already happened or is expected, e.g., climate change has resulted in increased droughts and water shortages across the globe. To counter this, adaptation solutions such as using drought resistant crops and recycling water for reuse is employed.

The notions and priorities of implementing a mitigation and adaptation policy in developing and low-income countries may be highly variable. For example, evidence from several country experiences on connecting households and firms to electricity by Asare (2021) shows that the mitigation policies (using RE) were primarily driven by donor agencies rather than the government because of more pressing issues such as poverty alleviation and promoting economic growth. Similarly, adaptation efforts in several African countries were primarily focussed on agricultural sector, being the backbone and source of livelihood for masses. The adaptation programmes primarily targeted traditional farming practised by small land holders more vulnerable to climate shocks.

According to Rojas (2021), the world needs both solutions – mitigation and adaptation, but “the less we choose to mitigate today, the more adaptation we’ll need later – adaptation that will become progressively less effective” as the world embraces more serious climate change threats particularly the developing and poor countries. He further adds developed countries have more power of choice and can afford reducing their emissions and hence they should contribute more to mitigation.

The climate mitigation and adaptation solutions need to be holistic – policies that promote structural transformation away from vulnerable sectors and support national development plans considering environmental impacts, creates enabling environment for innovative and disruptive technologies that promotes growth, reduces poverty, and fosters collaboration, learning, and knowledge sharing among public-private sectors, NGOs, international communities, and organizations (Asare, 2021).

– Climate Finance and Developing Countries
In 2009 at COP 15 in Copenhagen, developed countries pledged jointly to provide $100 billion fund per year to developing countries to address and fight their climate change issues and challenges. However, this his goal remains unfulfilled and developing countries continuously raised this issue at different climate forums including the COP 26 in Glasgow in 2021. Researchers and institutions repeatedly raise questions such as how will and how much will countries contribute, are countries paying fair share considering their wealth, past emissions, or population, are the beneficiaries the most vulnerable nations (Timperley 2021). USA, Australia, Canada who are well short than what they should have contributed to climate fund. Similarly, Japan, Germany and France are front runners having contributed more than their expected shares.

According to recent statement by Secretary-General OECD6, in 2019 developed countries mobilized 79.6 billion USD of climate finance which is expected to reach 100 billion USD by 2023 owing to new pledges and initiatives globally. For example, European countries – Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden each have pledged to provide500 million USD per year by 2025, new 413 million USD pledged as part of the Least Developed Countries Fund (LDCF), new commitments have been made by Japan, Germany, and the USA. Though these commitments seem promising, these numbers are miniscule compared to what the world needs. Further, COVID-19 pandemic and Ukraine-Russia war has put countries in difficult situation and stressed them to reassess their national priorities and global commitments such as climate finance.

Case Study
Mumbai Climate Action Plan (MCAP), India Background and issue
Mumbai is the financial hub of India and the capital of the state of Maharashtra. It is a densely populated coastal city of 12 million people. The city faces several climate change induced risks and vulnerabilities such as sea-level rise and extreme weather events for several decades.

The city launched India’s first Climate Action Plan in August 2021 with support of Government of Maharashtra, Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), technically assisted by C40 Cities Network and World Resources Institute (WRI) in India. As a part of the plan Mumbai city targets to reduce it’s GHG emissions to net zero  by 2050. In 2019, GHG emissions in Mumbai were 23.42 million tonnes CO2e of which 72% was contributed by the energy sector, particularly residential and commercial buildings followed by the transport sector (20%) and the waste sector (8%). The per capita emission of Mumbai city in 2019 stands at 1.8 tons of CO2e.

Key Features of the MCAP

• Data based: It uses a scientific evidence-based approach to mobile resource and implement the project.
• Streamlined: It is aligned with the Mumbai Development Plan (MDP) 2034, Maharashtra’s Majhi Vasundhara Abhiyaan, The Race2Zero campaign and several other sectors specific plans and policies.
• Target based: It uses the net zero pathway approach with a defined net zero target.
• Participatory: Involves multiple stakeholders comprising subject experts, research organizations, citizen forums, international development agencies and municipal service providers in a inclusive manner.
• Uses three baseline assessments: This includes the climate and air pollution risks and vulnerability assessment, GHG inventory that identifies key sources responsible for emissions, and an inventory of natural green cover in the city that can sequester carbon dioxide.
• Emission reduction scenarios for 2030, 2040 and 2050.
  
  Six key sectors and focus:

• Energy and buildings: decarbonisation of electric grids, clean fuel and resource efficiency, low carbon, and passive design buildings
• Sustainable mobility: transition to zero emission vehicles and freight, promote public and non-motorised transport
• sustainable waste management: decentralisation, landfill waste reduction, scientific management
• Urban greening and biodiversity: increase vegetative cover and equitable open green spaces, restore, and enhance biodiversity, reduce urban heat island effect
• Air quality – decrease pollution concentration levels, improved monitoring, decentralised planning, and community health resilience
• Effective urban flooding and water resource management

Source: Author’s adaptation based on information from https://mcap.mcgm.gov.in/

FOR MORE DETAIL DISCUSSION ON SDG 13 – CLIMATE ACTION, LISTEN TO THE PODCAST EPISODE ON ‘RESEARCH WITH NJ’.