Headline: RIFS Blog

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.

Food consumption and production are one of the key entry points available to human societies for effecting a transformation towards sustainability. Food production is a major contributor to a whole range of environmental problems including climate change, biodiversity loss, water overuse, and air and water pollution. Also, unhealthful diets cause chronic disease and millions of premature deaths around the world each year. One common link between these two unsustainable trends is high levels of consumption of animal products—meat, dairy, eggs, etc., particularly in industrialized countries, but also increasingly in developing countries. Thus, efforts to shift diets en masse away from animal products towards plant-based foods can reap multiple sustainability benefits.

Concern with the Amazon is common in international climate discourse. Indeed, “saving” the Amazon for the sake of the climate has become a rallying cry among climate policymakers and researchers alike. In this post, I want to argue that while curbing deforestation in the Amazon is undoubtedly important, framing the challenge as a mission to “save” the Amazon in order to fight climate change is problematic.

What is biodiversity? Often understood as the ensemble of plants, animals and microorganisms on Earth, biodiversity is, above all, a rich sample of genetic differences among species and the variety of ecosystems. In fact, the richer the diversity of life, the greater the opportunity for medical discoveries, economic development, and adaptive responses to wicked challenges such as climate change.

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.

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.