On February 6th, SDSN Northern Europe hosted a webinar titled "Are we burning the bridges? How to accelerate sustainable transformations," delving into global environmental sustainability together with three distinguished global experts.
On 6th of February, SDSN Northern Europe arranged the webinar “Are we burning the bridges? How to accelerate sustainable transformations”, focusing on global environmental sustainability and with the aim to couple the findings and conclusions from the UN Global Sustainable Development Report 2023, the recent third update of the Planetary Boundaries Framework, and the sixth Global Environmental Outlook. Adding to this, the webinar included an overview of the process and objectives of the upcoming seventh Global Environmental Outlook from UNEP.
The webinar featured three highly distinguished speakers:
Åsa Persson started off and talked about that the UN Global Sustainable Development Report shows a lot of challenges for the SDGs at the moment. The authors of the report called for action, for example about establishing a SDG transformation framework and building capacity.
Katherine Richardson said that six out of nine planetary boundaries were transgressed but what worries her the most is that we are even further away from the safe operating space now than in 2015. One specific area where there is a need for innovation is creating more opportunities for photosynthesis, since humanity is using too much photosynthesis products already.
Pierre Boileau gave a sneak peek from the upcoming Global Environmental Outlook and said, for example, that sustainable transformation pathways must be adapted to regional and economic realities and that high-income countries must take a larger responsibility regarding consumption, infrastructure, waste and emissions.
Following the presentations, a joint discussion was moderated by Martin Eriksson, Network Manager of SDSN Northern Europe. The discussion focused among other things on what the most important barriers are in order to turn the current trajectory to sustainable development, as well as what scientists and academics can do to accelerate sustainable transformations. Furthermore, the panelists discussed the need for new innovations versus scaling up existing approaches and practices, as well as what the risks are for a political backlash on the 2030 Agenda in light of the upcoming year when half of the world’s population goes to elections.
Recordings from the webinar will be published on the SDSN Northern Europe website during the upcoming weeks.
