WWF, CARE Call for Twinned Action on Carbon Reductions, Global Equity

The 2015 milestones of the Paris climate agreement and the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development produced “a key opportunity for tackling the interlinked, twin challenges of sustainable development and poverty eradication, and climate change,” CARE International and WWF International reported this week in the third and final edition of their Twin Tracks: Developing Sustainably and Equitably in a Carbon-Constrained World.

“Neither the Paris Agreement nor the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is perfect, but in many regards both are better than most people expected,” the organizations state. “However, time is not on our side. All governments have confirmed that the current plans lag significantly behind what is needed, in particular in terms of emission reductions. The consequences of slow action on emission reductions will be irreversible, and any delay in building climate resilience undermines the delivery of the [UN Sustainable Development Goals], pushing more people further into extreme poverty.”

Pointing to the “interconnected and interdependent nature of the world we live in,” CARE and WWF say both agreements will be even harder to implement than they were to enact. The process “requires genuine change in terms of how investments are made, how the economy is structured, how energy is generated, and how resources are used and managed,” they note. “This is not business as usual.”