Welcome to the United Nations
Introduction
The launch of the Decade of Action and Delivery for Sustainable Development in 2020 recognizes that the world has 10 years to meet the 17 sustainability goals. However, 2020 was also marked by the COVID-19 pandemic which has been called the ‘most challenging crisis [humanity has] faced since the Second World War’11 by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Besides generating massive adverse health and socio-economic impacts for societies around the globe, the COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed vulnerability to shocks, particularly among the poor and marginalized, feeding off existing inequalities and exacerbating them,12 undermining the aspiration of ‘leaving no one behind’. Economic gains and opportunities continue to be unequally distributed, while costs and impacts associated with climate change and biodiversity destruction are increasing exponentially and affecting disproportionately the most vulnerable and poor particularly in low-income countries.
The COVID-19 pandemic has furthermore laid bare the integrated nature of human development, well-being and planetary health and the profound reliance of human societies on a healthy and resilient biosphere providing suitable living conditions.13 The pandemic is merely a symptom of the devastating impacts of anthropogenic activities on natural ecosystems in a world characterized by complex interactions of globalized networks of travel and trade and densely populated urban areas. This is compounded by ecological habitat and land-use change, and climate change, resulting in increased human–wildlife interactions. It comes as a timely warning to urgently transform human actions and relations, including with non-human nature, to stabilize the Earth system currently threatened by further degradation of biodiversity, land, forests and oceans, air and water pollution, and destabilization of climate.
In line with the focus of the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) for 2021 on sustainable and resilient recovery, this position paper brings together the latest scientific evidence and thinking from the scientific and technological community. The paper sets out ways to advance progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) throughout the Decade of Action while living with and through the COVID-19 pandemic. It reflects on how the current context, devastating as it has been for so many, also provides a window of opportunity – a leverage point – from which to steer radical system transformation and to highlight contributions of the scientific and technological community to support transitions towards the desired outcomes.
