The UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) recently released the Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024. The report emphasizes that the world is falling significantly behind in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations in 2015. Inequalities are increasing, the climate crisis is intensifying, and biodiversity loss is accelerating.

Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 Key Highlights 

• Provides an in-depth update on global progress toward SDGs from 2015 to 2024, projecting future trends up to 2030.
• Highlights both achievements and challenges as the international community strives to fulfil the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 6: Clean Water And Sanitation

• From 2015 to 2022, the proportion of the population using safely managed drinking water increased from 69% to 73%.
• In 2022, 2.2 billion people still lacked safely managed drinking water, 3.5 billion went without safely managed sanitation, and 2 billion had inadequate hygiene services.
• Water stress globally reached an average of 18.6% in 2021, with Central and Southern Asia and Northern Africa facing high and critical stress, respectively.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 7:  Affordable And Clean Energy

• The number of people lacking access to electricity dropped from 958 million in 2015 to 685 million in 2022.
• Those without clean cooking fuels declined from 2.8 billion to 2.1 billion over the same period.
• By 2030, an estimated 660 million people will still lack electricity access and 1.8 billion will go without clean cooking fuels and technologies.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 13: Climate Action

• Communities worldwide suffer from extreme weather and increasingly frequent and intense disasters, destroying lives and livelihoods daily.
• Current national policies set the world on track for 3°C warming, with NDCs lowering this to 2.5°C. There is currently only a 14% chance of limiting warming to 1.5°C.
• In 2022, global greenhouse gas emissions reached a record 57.4 gigatons of CO2 equivalent.
• The energy sector, responsible for 86% of global CO2 emissions, remains the largest contributor, driven by the expansion of coal- and gas-fired power generation.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 14: Life Below Water

• The sustainability of global fishery resources declined from 90% in 1974 to 62.3% in 2021, due to overfishing, pollution, and poor management.
• The Southeast Pacific had the highest percentage of overfished stocks at 66.7%, followed by the Mediterranean and Black Sea at 62.5%.
• The value added of fisheries and aquaculture rose by 10% from 2019 to 2021, but the contribution of sustainable fisheries to GDP declined by 5.4% in 2021.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 15: Life On Land

• Between 2000 and 2020, the proportion of forest cover decreased from 31.9% to 31.2% of total land area, resulting in net forest area losses of nearly 100 million hectares.
• Agricultural expansion drove almost 90% of global deforestation; cropland accounted for 49.6% and livestock grazing for 38.5%.
• Species extinction, stalled protection of key biodiversity areas, and increased illicit wildlife trafficking pose serious threats to biodiversity.

Conclusion

The global community must unite to end conflicts causing immense suffering through dialogue and diplomacy. Reforming the outdated and unfair international financial system is essential to increase investment in the SDGs. Significant investments and effective partnerships are needed to drive key transitions in food, energy, and digital connectivity, advancing all the Goals. It’s time to turn the SDG Summit’s political declaration into action.

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