New Delhi: The UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has urged world leaders to focus on three key areas in order to achieve sustainable development: finance, climate action, and peace, a UN press release stated.
In his remarks Tuesday Guterres said that the world needed to make a commitment to end conflicts, heal divisions, and invest in people in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
He highlighted the need for reform of the global financial architecture in order to provide developing countries with sufficient financing and liquidity. He also underscored the vital importance of ensuring that women, girls and young people are at the decision-making table.
The SDG Stimulus, which Guterres proposed at the SDG Summit in 2021, would provide at least $500 billion per year in financing for developing countries. This proposal aimed to help them work towards ending hunger, expanding renewable energy, digitalization, education, social protection, and decent work, as well as addressing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.
The Secretary-General also urged developed countries to double down on their climate action plans in order to help the world reach the 1.5°C limit and achieve sustainable development. He stressed the need for a rapid and just phase-out of fossil fuels and a rapid and smart scale-up of renewables in order to drive sustainable development, energy security, and economic prosperity.
Protecting development gains from climate upheaval was also critical, Guterres said. He called for new and generous contributions to the loss and damage fund, as well as developed countries’ honouring of their commitment to double adaptation funding by 2025.
At the same time, the Secretary-General stressed the need for peace in order to continue with development plans. He called on global leaders to heal divisions, end conflicts, and invest in people and peace.
He concluded by saying that the world needed to keep the promises of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in order to end poverty, protect the planet, and leave no one behind. Guterres urged SDG commitment to be alive.