The Sustainable Development Goals: why the Nexus

approach is vital to the post 2015 Millennium

Development Goals

Felix Doddswww.felixdodds.net

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How did we get here

• Brundtland Commission (1983-1987)

• EARTH SUMMIT 1992• Agenda 21 – 40 chapters• Rio Declaration – 27

principles• UN Framework

Convention on Climate Change

• UN Convention on Biological diversity

• The Forest Principles

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After 1992 – the party

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Business as Usual

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Millennium Declaration 2000

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9/11 to Rio+20

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2008 financial crisis

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Energy and Food

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Planetary Boundaries – September 2009

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Climate also plays a significant role

“Changes in the global water cycle in response to the warming over the

21st century will not be uniform. The contrast in precipitation between wet

and dry regions and between wet and dry seasons will increase.”

IPCC September 2013

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Climate also plays a significant role

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.”

IPCC (September 2013)

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Climate also plays a significant role

“Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s

surface than any preceding decade since 1850.

In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of

the last 1400 years” IPCC September 2013

World Bank November 2012

97 percent of scientists agree on the reality of

climate change.The last 10,000 years

temperature has changed by no more than + or – 1

degree C. 16

President Obama – State of the Union

• “It’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods, all are now more frequent and more intense. We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science and act before it’s too late. “

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Rio+20

• Sustainable Development Goals• High Level Political Forum • Two processes:

– Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group– Committee on Financing Sustainable Development

• New Goals should be universal and puts both poverty eradication and sustainable development at the heart of the new goals

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IPCC Role Out

• Working Group I: The Science of Climate Change 27 September 2013

• Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability 31 March 2014

• Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change7-11 April 2014

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New Goals• Food and Nutrition YES• Water YES• Energy YES• Jobs YES

Education YES• Health YES• Employment (YES)• Poverty (YES)• Gender YES and Governance YES –cross cutting?• Oceans, Urban, Forests, Peace and Security, Disaster

Relief, Climate, Biodiversity MAYBE

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Term How it is Used in this Report

Goal Expresses an ambitious, but specific, commitment. Always starts with a verb/action.

Target Quantified sub-components that will contribute in a major way to achievement of goal. Should be an outcome variable.

Indicator Precise metric from identified databases to assess if target is being met (often multiple indicators are used).

Colombia and the Nexus approach Approach

Water Energy Food security Climate

Increase agricultural productivity by x%, with a focus on sustainably increasing smallholder

yields and access to irrigation.

InterlinkaInterlinkages: climate, water, food security

Bring freshwater withdrawals in line with supply and increase water efficiency in agriculture by x%,

industry by y% and urban areas by z%.

Interlinkages: Water and food security

Increase the amount of renewable energy by x% by xxxx

Interlinkages: energy and food security

Nexus Conference at UNC

Supported by World Bank UN DESA UNDP IRENA UN Habitat UNCCD Stockholm Environment

Institute Millennium Institute WWF International WBCSD

Outputs:• Nexus Declaration• An Academic and

Practitioners NetworkOutcome• A community of

practice for the Nexus

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NEXUS CONFERNCE AT UNC

1. Urban Challenges of the Nexus: Local and Global perspectives

2. Nexus perspectives: Water, Energy and Climate

3. Nexus perspectives: Water, Food and Climate

4. Natural Resource Security for People: Water, Food and Energy

1. Entrepreneurial Environmentalism and Development

2. Nexus Corporate Stewardship: How business is improving resource use

3. Financing the Nexus: policy and practice

4. Learning from the past, building a new future: Nexus Scientific Research

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And……

• Nexus Bingo• Nexus Dating• Side Events• Workshops for abstracts

We expect to have:• WBCSD launching a

major report on the Food and Water Nexus

• UN Water Report pre-launch

• Future Earth – first outing

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Einstein

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

…….."Two things are infinite: the universe and

human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

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