This week, the United Nations will be convening academics, politicians, policy makers, campaigners and global leaders for the UN Summit for the Adoption of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Dr Tom Hale is one of the Blavatnik School’s academics who will be participating in the Summit in the context of his research around “bottom up” climate actions.
The UN Summit is one of the many global events that make 2015 a crucial year for global action on sustainable development and climate change. While this meeting will be the forum at which the UN General Assembly endorses the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in December governments are expected to reach a new universal climate agreement at COP21 in Paris.
Though these two multilateral processes run in parallel, their subjects are deeply intertwined. There will be no solution to climate change without sustainable development, and no sustainable development without climate action. But how can we ensure that the global response to these challenges is as integrated as the problems themselves?
Dr Thomas Hale has been working on research that provides a resounding response to that question: the groundswell of climate and sustainable development actions being taken around the world by cities, regions, companies, civil society groups, and many others. Working individually and in partnership, often with national governments and international organisations, this “whole of society” approach is already bringing the climate change and sustainable development agendas together in concrete actions, as exemplified by the Lima-Paris Action Agenda.
This Saturday, Dr Hale will co-host a side event to the UN Summit in New York in his capacity as a founder of the Galvanizing the Groundswell of Climate Actions initiative. This event, titled “Delivering together on the sustainable development and climate action agendas,” brings together minister, mayors, CEOs, and other leading representatives from across the government, civil society, business, and research communities, from both developing and developed countries. The aim is to showcase how bottom-up actions are already integrating and implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the forthcoming global climate agreement, and how such efforts can be further scaled up to fully deliver on the ambitions of the international community in the coming decade.
- Find out more about the UN side event on sustainable development and climate.
- Find out more about Dr Hale’s research.
- Find out more about the UN Summit.
