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Centre for Sustainable Development

Est 2000 - home of the MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development
 

Dick Fenner and Tom Cernev address this question in a new paper recently published in Futures in March 2021 (which can be accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2021.102726)

They focus specifically on four “foundational” SDGs: SDG 1 No Poverty; SDG 3: Good Health and Wellbeing; SDG 14: Life Below Water; and SDG 15 Life on Land as well as the overarching SDG 13 Climate Action. These are critical in maintaining  a healthy human and environmental  resource base on which progress towards all goals  can be built.  The performance of these goals  is discussed under 4 scenarios which may emerge as a response to the pandemic: Global Well-being Prioritised b) World Trade Recovers c) Poverty  Gaps Widen c) Earth Systems in Danger. Dick and Tom  conclude that opportunities to refocus efforts on delivery of the SDGs exist but may be hampered by the competing interests of a new geo-politics.