The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024 released by the United Nations reveals that only 17 percent of the SDG targets are on track, nearly half show minimal or moderate progress, and over one-third are stalled or regressing.
The report says that the lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, escalating conflicts, geopolitical tensions, and growing climate chaos have severely hindered SDG progress and the interconnected challenges are endangering the realization of the SDGs by the 2030 deadline.
Highlighting the concerns about the climate crisis, the report shows that 2023 was the warmest year on record, with global temperatures nearing the critical 1.5°C threshold. Greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to reach new highs. Fossil fuel subsidies hit a record high globally in 2022– exceeding $1.5 trillion.
The report says that in 2022, roughly half the world’s population experienced severe water scarcity for at least part of the year and one quarter faced “extremely high” levels of water stress. It also highlighted that without a change in course, an estimated 660 million people will still lack electricity access and around 1.8 billion will go without clean cooking fuels and technologies by 2030.
The report reveals that inequalities have been on the rise with an additional 23 million people pushed to extreme poverty. Also, for the first time in the century, the per-capita GDP growth in half of the world’s most vulnerable nations is slower than that in advanced economies.
Nearly 1 in 10 people are facing hunger globally and nearly 60% of countries have faced moderately to abnormally high food prices in 2022, a four-fold increase from 2015-2019.
When it comes to gender advancement, while women hold 40 percent of global employment, they only occupied 27.5 percent of managerial positions in 2022, the same share as in 2016. At current rates, parity will require another 176 years.
Despite these deeply worrying trends, the report also highlights opportunities and examples of success and resilience that can be built upon at global and regional levels.
“We have a rescue plan before us, in the [SDG Summit] political declaration. Now is the time to lift the declaration’s words off the page, and invest in development at scale like never before,” said UN Secretary General António Guterres.
