Here's what happened in SUSTAINABILITY in 2021...
2021 was a big year for sustainability! Here are the big moments and highlights from 2021 related to climate, energy, health, nature and more.
OVERVIEW
The first half of the year was uncertain for the global sustainability community, largely due to the situation with COVID 19. Many countries were locked down and governments were busy working through vaccine roll out, but scheduled sustainability negotiations continued to take place in mostly virtual formats throughout the year with minimal cancellations. The big exceptions to this were the cancellation of the COP15 meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity which was set to take place in China in October but has been pushed to April 2022 and the cancellation of the World Trade Organizations Ministerial meeting where a number of trade and sustainability issues such as fishery subsidies were meant to be decided on, that meeting has yet to be rescheduled.
FEBRUARY - United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA)
In February, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), the governing body of UN Environment took place under under the theme of “Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.” UNEA marked the approval of UN Environment’s Medium Term Strategy for 2022-2025.
MARCH - High-Level Meeting on the Water-Related SDGs
In March, the UN General Assembly held a special High-Level Meeting on the water-related SDGs where Member States shared their experiences and lessons on achieving clean water and sanitation at national, regional and global levels.
MAY - IEA Net Zero by 2050
Other than these two sessions, the spring was relatively quiet and consisted mostly of preparatory meetings for the absolutely hectic fall calendar that was on the horizon. We did see a very interesting report published in May by the International Energy Agency that provided a road map for what it would take to make decarbonize our energy system by 2050.
JUNE - Decade for Ecosystem Restoration
Moving into summer, in June the UN launched the Decade for Ecosystem Restoration which is described as a rallying call for the protection and revival of ecosystems all around the world, for the benefit of people and nature.
JULY - High Level Political Forum
Every July is the High Level Political Forum where the SDGs are reviewed, and this took place in a mostly virtual format with honestly very little of substance coming out of the meeting other than a Ministerial Declaration that was much of the same as we always see. It reaffirmed the importance of the SDGs and called for building back better after the pandemic.
AUGUST - IPCC - Sixth Assessment (one working group only)
In August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change posted their Code Red for Humanity Assessment report which had several important takeaways including that there is an unequivocal link between humans and climate change; that we are already experiencing unprecedented changes to our planet; and, importantly that it is still possible to meet the Paris Climate Agreement if we take swift and decisive action.
SEPTEMBER - UNGA - Food Systems Summit & High Level Dialogue on Energy
In September, the UN General Assembly kicked off in New York with a relatively large in-person component which was a little novel to see after a year and a half of virtual negotiations. It also featured two special meetings - the Food Systems Summit and the Global Dialogue on Energy. These two meetings did have outcomes that were more concrete.
The Food Systems Summit identified 5 “Action Tracks” focused on ensuring access to safe and nutritious food for all, shifting to sustainable consumption patterns, boosting nature-positive production, advancing equitable livelihoods, and building resilience to vulnerabilities in the food system.
And the Energy Dialogue set out a global roadmap for universal energy access and energy transition by 2030 and was backed up with $400B in new commitments referred to as Energy Compacts.
NOVEMBER - COP26
Both of these events flowed very nicely into what was the most high profile event of the year - of course I am talking about COP26 of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which took place in Glasgow Scotland in early November. This was a long anticipated event with a lot of expectations and ultimately the outcomes were a mixed bag. The negotiators agreed to the Glasgow Climate Pact, which essentially asked countries to come back with stronger commitments next year in order to try harder for that 1.5C temperature rise and for developed countries to put up more cash for climate adaptation in developing countries. According to the World Resource Institute, countries also made bold collective commitments to curb methane emissions, to halt and reverse forest loss, align the finance sector with net-zero by 2050, ditch the internal combustion engine, and end international financing for fossil fuels. But of course, the main headline out of COP was that negotiators were not able to agree to “phase out coal” and rather were only able to get the wording “phase down coal.” Ultimately the commitments of countries both in terms of emissions reductions and climate financing were not sufficient and so we will try again next year in Egypt.
NOVEMBER - Special Session of the World Health Assembly
Following COP at the end of November the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, held a rare special session dedicated to pandemic preparedness and response to health emergencies.
Keep Learning
Here are a few great resources for further reading and learning: