Environmental law making and oversight for sustainable development. A guide for legislators

United Nations
Mehera, Malini
Milligan, Ben

2018

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The Agenda features 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 Targets, which UN member states have committed to implement by 2030. These Goals and Targets are universal (applying to all countries) and interconnected. They firmly recognise that social and economic development depends on sustainable management of the natural environment and its resources, including ecosystems and biodiversity. The SDGs and Targets are complemented by another set of inter-governmental agreements also reached in 2015 that focus on specific challenges concerning sustainable development. These agreements cover disaster risk reduction, finance and climate change, and are as follows: In March 2015, the UN member states adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction—a 15-year agreement that aims to achieve ‘The substantial reduction of disaster risk and losses in lives, livelihoods and health and in the economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets of persons, businesses, communities and countries’. Soon after in July 2015, UN member states endorsed the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development, which aims to address financial barriers to sustainable development and align all financial flows and policies with the economic, social and environmental priorities of the 2030 Agenda. Finally in December, the Paris Agreement on Climate Change committed all nations to a common cause to undertake ambitious efforts to combat climate change and adapt to its effects, with enhanced support to assist developing countries to do so. These four ambitious commitments—combined with the results of the 2015 Bejing+20 Review Conference on the status of women, and the 2020 Aichi Targets for Biodiversity agreed in 2011—collectively mark the beginning of a new ‘post-2015’ era of sustainable development. They aspire for transformative change in a world confronted by grave social, economic, political and environmental challenges. With regard to the environment, which is the focus of this document, the status quo falls far short of the world envisaged by the post-2015 commitments. At a global level and across almost all corners of the Earth, we have changed the natural environment rapidly and extensively to meet growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel.3 This has resulted in a substantial and largely irreversible loss in the diversity of life on Earth.3 Many of the benefits and opportunities provided by the environment are being missed or lost, with often particular asymmetries experienced depending on gender, race, ethnicity, class and other characteristics. The planet’s ecosystems provide us with food, materials and energy, regulate and maintain our health and safety, and are integral to our culture and identity. Ecosystems and the valuable goods and services they provide are being rapidly degraded as a result of pollution, overexploitation, climate change, and habitat destruction. In most countries, the values and benefits of ecosystems are not fully taken into account. They are also increasingly being questioned and challenged in national political debates and policies.

Energías Renovables; Política Energética; Política Pública; Desarrollo Sostenible;