Climate change as sustainable goal for post-2015 era

The UN Open Working Group on Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (OWG SDGs) has finally picked up climate change as a stand-alone goal for the post-MDG (Millennium Development Goals) era. After long negotiations and heated debate, the OWG SDGs adopted this in its consensus report on July 19 in New York. The fate of climate goal, along with 16 other proposed SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), will be determined through negotiations which will culminate with a UN General Assembly Resolution in September 2015 for a post-2015 framework on SDGs.
Choosing climate change as a stand-alone SDG is in itself an advancement in the whole process of UN negotiations. Climate change is still to be shaped in a coherent manner as a new SDG. What is more interesting now to watch is how it unfolds as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the post-2015 SDG talks are on separate tracks. What happens at the Paris climate talks will have a significant effect on the feasibility of delivering the post-2015 goals and targets. In the worst case scenario, if there is only a weak deal in Paris, climate will deteriorate further and more money will have to be spent on adaptation and disaster relief. That is likely to leave fewer resources available for health, education and safety net. In the best case scenario, the reverse might be true, for example, with lower fossil fuel subsidies, releasing funds for renewable energy.
The UN OWG document makes repeated references to climate change and to the policies needed to deal with it. Thus,
* Paragraph 8 of the preamble specifically refers to the 'global nature of climate change' and calls for 'the widest possible collaboration by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response'. It also cites the UNFCCC as recognising that countries have 'common but differentiated responsibilities'.
*  Goal 7 and its five targets deal with energy and refers to the need for sustainability and the need to increase the share of renewables.
*  Goal 8 on growth refers to the need for sustainable consumption and production.
*  Goal 9, dealing with infrastructure and industrialisation, refers to the need for infrastructure to be resilient.
*  Goal 11 deals with the need for cities and human settlements to be resilient, and has a target relating to reduced losses from disasters.
*  Goal 12 deals with sustainable consumption and production and has a target on fuel subsidies.
* Goal 13 is a climate change goal, acknowledging the work of the UNFCCC and proposing targets on national planning, education and finance.
The UN OWG strategy seems to make only general statements on climate change per se, but focuses instead on practical measures at sector level, especially energy, water and infrastructure. If that is the strategy, it does not seem to have been applied very systematically. For example, it was expected to make references to resilience in the agriculture section and to the impact of extreme weather events (including heat stress) in the health section. It should have also referred to the transformative impact of climate change in the productive sectors, including those dealing with agriculture, growth and industrialisation.
There is no shortage of work on climate change to suggest it will be a game-changer in the world economy. Climate-compatible development points not just to mitigation and adaptation at national or local level, but also to major changes in prices and the structure and geographic location of global production.
There is also another perspective where developed countries thought that developing countries could also influence both the climate change and the SDG processes through strong pledges. But, the developed industrialised countries caused the climate change and historical responsibility fall on them and they are supposed to cut back emissions steeply. They are also supposed to finance climate adaptation and SDGs in vulnerable developing countries. However, some of the industrialised countries are now arguing that some developing countries are also emitting or even surpassing the carbon emission of the largest industrialised country. Therefore, they say, leadership and ambition could be bottom-up as well, not always waiting for action from the global regime.
Whether aligning processes would deliver can only be seen how best the global leaders could master political will to strike deals on SDGs, climate treaty and post-Hygo Framework on disaster risk reduction.
It is also important to take an objective view of the pros and cons of pursuing an integrated climate change and SDG agenda. For instance, tying SDGs to climate change targets could slow down the agreement process and complicate things by making SDGs address the issue of common but differentiated responsibility that is a core principle of climate negotiations. On the other hand, making climate change central to the SDGs would send a strong signal to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) negotiators, especially by setting a goal on mitigation that is in accordance with the goals in the UNFCCC process.
As the development community grapples with these issues and seeks best options for the post-2015 era, one thing that is certain is that climate change and development are deeply inter-linked challenges and this relationship requires special attention. Not all development interventions are environmentally sustainable and similarly not all climate change-related decisions are pro-poor and therefore, it is critical to ensure harmony between the two policy fields, starting with the SDGs. However, it is quite prudent to pick climate change as a stand-alone SDG with the OWG signalling a positive way forward.
The writer is a member of the Bangladesh delegation and               Chairman of FEJB & APFEJ.               [email protected]