Climate Action - Planet Health Check

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact

Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13) is about Climate Action. The official wording is to: “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impact”. Climate change is affecting every country on every continent. It is disrupting national economies and affecting lives. Weather patterns are changing, sea levels are rising, and weather events are becoming more extreme.

Climate change is a real and undeniable threat to our entire civilization. The effects are already visible and will be catastrophic unless we act now. Through education, innovation and adherence to our climate commitments, we can make the necessary changes to protect the planet. These changes also provide huge opportunities to modernize our infrastructure which will create new jobs and promote greater prosperity across the globe.

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The agreement also aims to strengthen the ability of countries to deal with the impacts of climate change, through appropriate financial flows, a new technology framework and an enhanced capacity building framework.

From 1880 to 2012, average global temperature increased by 0.85°C. To put this into perspective, for each 1 degree of temperature increase, grain yields decline by about 5 per cent. Maize, wheat and other major crops have experienced significant yield reductions at the global level of 40 megatons per year between 1981 and 2002 due to a warmer climate.
Oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished and sea level has risen. From 1901 to 2010, the global average sea level rose by 19 cm as oceans expanded due to warming and ice melted. The Arctic’s sea ice extent has shrunk in every successive decade since 1979, with 1.07 million km² of ice loss every decade.
Given current concentrations and on-going emissions of greenhouse gases, it is likely that by the end of this century, the increase in global temperature will exceed 1.5°C compared to 1850 to 1900 for all but one scenario. The world’s oceans will warm and ice melt will continue. Average sea level rise is predicted as 24-30cm by 2065 and 40-63cm by 2100. Most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries even if emissions are stopped.
Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have increased by almost 50 per cent since 1990.
Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades.

Target 13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related disasters

Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.

Target 13.2 Integrate climate change measures into policies and planning

Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.

Target 13.3 Building knowledge and capacity to meet climate change

Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.

Target 13.A Implement the UN framework convention on climate change

Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible.

Target 13.B Promote mechanisms to raise capacity for planning and management

Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing States, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities.

Target 13.C Ensure stable food commodity markets and timely access to information

Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility.

Acknowledging that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the primary international, intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.

Challenge: anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have increased since the pre-industrial era, driven largely by economic and population growth, and are now higher than ever;
Solution: inform and inspire people and institutions to take action against climate change.

Challenge: the world is warming at an alarming rate, harming our ability to grow food;
Solution: innovate and adopt technological solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

Challenge: storms, floods, hurricanes and droughts are intensifying, oceans are warming and becoming more acid, ice is disappearing and seas are rising;
Solution: protect the most vulnerable against climate change impacts.

What can we do to help achieving SDG 13? The climate crisis continues unabated as the global community shies away from the full commitment required for its reversal. 2010-2019 was the warmest decade ever recorded, bringing with it massive wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, floods and other climate disasters across continents. To address climate change, we have to vastly increase our efforts. Much is happening around the world – investments in renewable energy have soared. But so much more needs to be done. The world must transform its energy, industry, transport, food, agriculture and forestry systems to ensure that we can limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C, maybe even 1.5°C.

In December 2015, the world took a significant first step by adopting the Paris Agreement, in which all countries com-mitted to take action to address climate change. But this is not sufficient and the contribution of all of us is needed: There are many things that each of us can do as individuals. To find out what you can do, go to our Tips page.

What can I do?