Plenary, Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6), Climate Action (SDG 13)
Climate action in the Anthropocene
Opha Pauline Dube Department of Environmental Science, University of Botswana
Central to Sustainable Development Goal 13(SDG 13)- Climate Action, is the unprecedented change in the chemistry of the atmosphere due to human related activities, leading to profound alteration of Planet Earth life sustaining processes. The 2015 Paris agreement addresses SDG 13 by aiming to limit the increase in global average temperature well below 2 °C by 2100 while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Even with these targeted global average temperatures, there is likelihood of multidimensional impacts over and above what is already experienced, detrimental to resilience of both human and natural systems. As a result, adaptation is imperative more so in developing regions with low adaptation capacity. However, evidence shows that the global community is yet to sufficiently deliver on Climate Action, and the likelihood of warming exceeding 1.5°C during the 21st century is high. While all SDGs are inter-linked this is more the case for SDG 13, indicating that Climate Action cannot be addressed alone. Agenda 2030 addresses the planetary scale of human influence that accelerated from 1700, prompting Earth System Scientists to contend that the world has entered a new geological period, the Anthropocene epoch. Driven by extreme consumerism with extensive technological developments that maintain effective lines of global connectivity, the current Anthropocene is defined by markedly intertwined human and natural systems, but lacking the hallmark for sustainability. Increasing inequality, widespread poverty, and hunger, rising green house gases, ocean acidification and escalating environmental hazards and disasters are some of the indicators of challenges of sustainability in the current Anthropocene. The 17 SDGs represent a globally agreed mandate for transformation to sustainability. Sustained progress with climate change abatement and adaptation should be routed in the challenges of the current Anthropocene and leverage on the interaction with other SDGs, that is, enhancing co-benefits and minimizing trade-offs. Science, including Chemistry is challenged more than ever to provide the knowledge base for accelerating achievement of SDGs to redirect the current Anthropocene towards resilience.
© The Author(s), 2023
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