Climate talks will lead to Sustainable Development Goals – Environmentalist

An environmentalist, Dr Nasiru Idris, said on Monday the ongoing climate talks being held by more than 195 countries in Lima, Peru, would help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the SDGs are expected to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the end of 2015.

Idris told NAN at the on-going 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 20) to the Kyoto Protocol in Lima that the objectives of COP, starting from COP 1 to COP 20 were linked with the achievements of SDGs and other development agenda.

“Most of the agenda right from COP one to COP 20 are leading towards achieving the SDGs because the word sustainable development is how to sustain the environment and how to sustain your living, how to sustain everything on our biosphere.

“Therefore, environmental conferences, UN NGOs and their organisations are working toward achieving that particular goal of SDGs.

“If you look at the goal of SDGs; we have a triangle, it looks at the environment, you look at the social aspect and the equity.

“This triangle has to be achieved and for government to achieve this goal; you need to benefit from economic perspective; you have to look at social economic aspect, the living of the people.

“And for you to achieve that you have to tap the environment.“

Idris said that the concept of sustainable development focused at meeting the needs of the present generation without comprising the needs of the future generation. He said that the environment needed to be understood and managed effectively to be able to achieve the SDGs.

“ It (SDGs) is the development that looks at the ability of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generation so that they will meet their own needs.

“What the triangle has to say is that for you to tap the environment, you understand it so that you can use it without compromising ability of the future generation.

“You have to consider the future generation while using the resources,’’ he said.

Idris, also a director at the Centre for Environmental Studies, Nassarawa State University, said that both climate change talks and SDGs share the same goal of sustainable development.

He said that the processes of climate talks and the SDGs share the same path as they move towards the second half of 2015.

NAN reports that the UN General Assembly is to ratify the SDGs in September 2015 and in November the COP 21 in Paris is to agree on a new climate treaty, to be effective from 2020. (NAN)