Growing inequality and climate change will not only derail progress towards global sustainability goals but threaten human existence, leading scientists said at the United Nations. UN Member nations unanimously adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, setting out a wide-ranging list tackling conflict, hunger, land degradation, gender equality and climate change by 2030. The independent panel of scientists investigated the ways and systems in which humans and the environment are linked and interact, stating that we are on “a worrying trajectory”. They reported that countries must put into practice ways to address vast gaps in wealth distribution and access to economic opportunities and technological advances that undermine innovation and economic growth. It also called on nations to focus on food and energy production and distribution, consumption and urban growth to find ways of building sustainable development. The cost of implementing the global goals has been estimated at $3 trillion a year.

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Thomas Reuters Foundation