Objective 13: Action for climate
SDO 13 aims to Adopt urgent measures to fight climate change and its effects. Climate change is the main problem confronting humanity because, unless urgent and radical steps are taken, the consequences will be catastrophic.
These consequences include changes to weather patterns, a rise in sea level and extreme weather phenomena (like that shown in the bottom photo). The emissions of greenhouse gases, caused by human activity, are higher than ever and increasing and also the main culprits. If we do not act now, the average temperature of the surface of the Earth could increase by 3 degrees centigrade this century, and in some parts of the planet this could be even worse, making places such as that in the top photo uninhabitable. The poorest and most vulnerable people would be most affected. It is a problem which needs the international community to work in coordination and with precision so that developing countries (and developed ones which are responsible for most of the emissions) progress towards a low carbon economy.
To combat climate change, December 2015 saw the approval of the Paris Agreement which took effect the following year and has been signed by 197 countries, who commit themselves to working to limit the temperature increase to less than 2ºC compared with preindustrial levels, and to try to limit that rise to 1.5ºC.
Some of the aims of this Objective are the strengthening of the resilience and capacity to adapt of countries to the risks linked to climate, or to mobilise 100,000 million dollars from developed countries by 2020, to attend to the need for mitigation in developing countries.