Sustainable Development Goal 13: Slow Climate Change with Responsible Energy and Emissions

Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have grown by almost 50 percent since 1990. Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in the prior three decades.

The UN has gathered research like this to support each of their 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These 17 goals grew out of the 2012 Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. World leaders came together around a set of shared priorities for the most urgent environmental, political, and economic challenges facing the planet.

In the big picture, Goal 13 seeks to reduce the most disastrous impacts of climate change by encouraging a more responsible approach to energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. That’s how we can strengthen our collective resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in every country.

Here are more facts on how smarter energy and emissions policies will impact climate change:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported, “We are already seeing the consequences of 1°C of global warming through more extreme weather, rising sea levels, and diminishing Arctic sea ice, among other changes.”

They also concluded that in order to slow global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, global changes to how we use our land, energy, and transportation. It would require carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions caused by human activity to drop by 45 percent below 2010 levels over the next decade. The goal is to hit ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050.

Want to know more about Goal 13?  Visit the Goal 13 targets site.

Ready to submit your idea on energy and emissions?

Ideation: If we don’t make changes on a massive scale, our planet is likely to warm by 4 degrees C in the years ahead. How can we make people and organizations want to reduce emissions and how can we prepare for a warmer world?

Ideation: The world has been slow to adopt climate-friendly energy options like solar, wind, etc. How can we speed the change, make old energy sources irrelevant, and choose the best new sources?