Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

From 2-4 July, the Working Group of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention met for the 28th time in the UN Headquarters in Geneva. The agenda featured critical topics such as access to justice, public participation in international forums, the protection of environmental defenders, compliance cases, capacity-building, and possible topics of future work. However, one cross-cutting issue loomed over the discussions: the significant shortfall in financial contributions to support the growing workload of the Secretariat and Compliance Committee.

Energy markets have clearly failed to accelerate the deployment of renewables. But as the pendulum swings in the direction of state intervention, policymakers must create the conditions for the public and private sectors to work together to manage a timely green transition and avoid a popular backlash against climate goals.

The SHAPE project’s final conference was held on 16 February 2023. More than 120 people attended the day-long virtual conference to learn about and discuss the project's findings.

In 2022, Germany assumed the presidency of the Group of 7 (G7). Its term got off to an ambitious start but was soon overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In addition to the crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine, the war is having an immense impact on the energy sector and efforts to protect the climate, the extent of which cannot be calculated at present. At the same time, Germany now finds itself caught up in a severe crisis due to its dependence on Russian gas imports.

From 21 March to 1 April 2022 governments will continue negotiations of international regulations for deep seabed at the International Seabed Authority (ISA). Scientists from IASS will attend the 27th Session of the ISA Council as part of research on environmental standards for deep seabed mining.

At COP26, we saw decisions and a handful of statements, pledges, and declarations parallel to the official negotiations centered on Just Transition. But did anything change in the substance of the JT debate in Glasgow?

Are the annual Conference of Parties (COPs) for global agreements on climate change reinforcing a false sense of security?

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow is an important meeting for all countries. Research conducted at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) tackles many of the issues addressed in the negotiations. Some of our researchers attended the Climate Conference in person or virtually. We share some of their observations here.

Advancements in new technologies open up new ocean industries and possibilities to explore the ocean. Some of these new technologies, such as swarms of underwater mini robots to map the seafloor or sensors on automated underwater vehicles, assist scientists in their work and produce growing quantities of ocean data.

What kind of help do remote rural villages in developing countries need to sustainably improve their infrastructure? What is the state of electricity supply and services, the availability and quality of cooking solutions, and the quality of water access in these settlements? Is there a nexus between access to basic services and nutrition in these areas? And, if a project is implemented, how can progress made at the household level be monitored, reported, and evaluated? These questions are at the heart of the project “Action-Based & Impact-Driven Research: Establishing Collaborative Frameworks for Researchers, Impact Makers, and Sustainable Entrepreneurs (IMPACT-R).”

In late February 2021, Japanese trading company Mitsubishi Corporation decided to pull out of the Vinh Tan 3 coal-fired power plant project in Vietnam after facing considerable pressure from investors and activists over the company’s fossil fuel investments. This decision follows in the footsteps of HSBC’s withdrawal one year previously. Scheduled to go on-grid in 2024, the 2-gigawatt plant was expected to feature ultra-supercritical technology. This is the first time that Mitsubishi has pulled out of a coal development project. Work on Vinh Tan 3 will now continue under the aegis of China Southern Power Grid, which is also a major investor in the Vinh Tan 1 power plant. However, this outcome will not serve the interests of Vietnam in terms of job creation, air quality, and achieving climate targets.

Five years have passed since the so-called ‘Paris Agreement’ was concluded at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) following years of deliberation between the member States. For the ocean, the Paris Agreement represents a turning point: previously issues relating to the ocean were side-lined in COP negotiations.

On 5 March 2020, the Welsh Government and the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) will be jointly hosting a shared learning event in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Berlin. The event, "The Future is Now", will be a tangible demonstration of Sustainable Development Goal 17, “Partnerships for the Goals”. Specifically, it will seek to show how collaboration between European countries, at a local and sub-national level, can strengthen our response to the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030.

In December 2019, twenty-five experts from Germany, Austria and Switzerland gathered at the IASS in Potsdam to tackle an ambitious project: The development of a common statutory standard based on leading sustainability reporting standards.

As 2019 comes to an end and the world prepares for COP 25, one can wonder about the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in different continents, and especially in Africa. Based in Kigali, Rwanda, the SDGs Center for Africa organized its major SDG conference in June 2019, where it launched its landmark “SDG Index and Dashboard Report” 3.5 years after the UN adopted its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The report paints a mixed picture of progress towards achieving the SDGs across the African continent.