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Australia: 2.a- Pre-Bilateral-Climate Change is our Our Shared Problem
Climate change is currently affecting every country and on the planet whether it be economically, environmentally or socially. The Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG13) is to ‘Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts’ and is one of the 17 Sustainable Development goals set by the United Nations to try and improve the world we live in by making a positive for both people and the planet. They each consist of specific targets as well as indicators which help determine how much progress has been made in each target.
This blog will answer the questions about how relevant the targets proposed in the SDG 13 are and how they respond to the effects that climate change have on water and how they affect both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities. The blog will be split into three parts, each mainly focusing on one effect of climate change on water when answering the questions, the effects being Change in Water/Weather, Sea Levels Rising and Fresh Water availability.
Change in Water/Weather:
-What are the most relevant actions/targets proposed in SDG#13?
The most relevant target proposed in SDG#13 was to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.
As climate change developed, it has intensified already deadly weather-related natural disasters such as tropical cyclones and hurricanes. From 1990-2015, more than 1.6 million people have died internationally from natural disasters. I believe that as climate change progresses, the effects and storms only get worse, especially for developing island nations. The proposed target will hopefully help to reduce the associated deaths.
Early warning (if I was to interpret it as ‘Natural Disaster Early Warning’) is another relevant action proposed in SDG#13. Not only will it save lives by giving citizens time to find suitable shelter, it will also let them prepare their property to minimize damage as much as possible, therefore aiding clean-up afterwards. Preparation of property should also include moving most things indoors. This means that there will be less debris getting flung about by the winds of a climate-change-intensified tropical cyclones/hurricanes, and a reduced number of associated deaths.
-How do SDG #13 targets respond to the challenges created by the effects of climate change in water in both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities?
The targets in SDG#13 seem to only respond by making ‘strategies’ which are not clearly explained, they seem to only be making “[policies][/strategies]/[plans] which [increase] their ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change” and supporting the “least developed countries and small island developing States.”
I cannot find any place where SDG#13 responds to the effects on climate changing water in both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities.
-What other areas do you think should be taken into account?
Other areas that should be taken into account are the infrastructures of the weather-impacted nations. If a structure is unfit to withstand a potentially deadly weather disaster, many more unnecessary deaths will result when the structure gives in to the winds. I believe that more funding be put into the improvement of structures as a part of increasing resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters.
-What elements would you incorporate if you had to build and action/target that addressed water, Indigenous peoples, and non-indigenous people? Provide a brief rationale that justifies each element.
If I was to build an action plan/target that addressed water for Indigenous and non-indigenous people, I would first try to bridge the gap between the two categories of people and get them to realise that they are all in this together and must work together as one group. This is because the segregation between people is doing, and won’t do any favours, especially with a problem of this magnitude, thus I have decided to first resolve the segregation.
The next part of the plan would be to heavily restrict the use of pesticides across the nation. With increased erosion “projected” in the future, pesticides are going to end up in the fresh water supplies (in ground water, lakes etc.) as well as other pollutants. This will also promote algal blooms as the low-flow periods will be increased. I believe that we should better protect the water resources that we have now.
The final part of my action plan/target is to allocate money to projects focused on purifying water and collecting fresh water, such as desalination plants, and research into finding other readily available fresh water sources.
Sea Levels Rising:
-What are the most relevant actions/targets proposed in SDG#13
The most relevant actions/targets proposed in the Sustainable development Goal 13 is target 13.B as it would greatly help multiple developing countries with how they combat and limit the impact climate change. This is because least developing countries and islands are some of the places that are at the most risk of the effects of climate change and especially many of the islands in the pacific as they are surrounded by ocean and are very isolated. One of these islands is Fiji which has a town called Daku and is facing the effects of climate change through increased rate and severity of storm and storm surges and although help has been provided with a seawall and a floodgate over the years, the town still suffers from an increased threat of disease, water damaging there food supply and the rising sea levels eroding their buildings. These problems are happening to multiple islands around the Pacific and the with the actions proposed in 13.B many of the places now that are being affected by climate change can be helped and supported with the resources they need. SDG 13.B also mentions how it will be focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities, highlighting how they are going try to help everyone and all areas that are going to be affected by climate change.
-How do SDG #13 targets respond to the challenges created by the effects of climate change in water in both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities?
The SDG13 targets respond to the challenges created by the effects of climate change in water for both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities by addressing very broad targets. Target 13.1 states that it will ‘strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries’ meaning that both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities that are affected by climate change affecting water and other factors will be receive help to increase resilience and adaptive capacity with risk reduction strategies, recovery plans and being alerted of risk quicker which also links to target 13.3 with an aim to improve awareness and early warning of the effects of climate change and natural disasters. The target 13.2 states ‘Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning’ into more counties and this would respond well to non-indigenous and especially Indigenous communities because even though some indigenous groups can be quite isolated on developing countries with target 13.A going to implement a commitment by developed countries to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)with mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries with mitigation actions and the implementation of the Green Climate Fund which assists developing countries in adaptation and mitigation practices to counter climate change. All of these targets would dramatically help both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities with the challenges created by the effects of climate change on water with all of the preparation and planning that they can to mitigate the damage natural disasters and rising sea levels can do whist also focusing heavily on developing countries as they need money and resources to follow through with these targets.
-What other areas do you think should be taken into account?
Other areas that should be taken into account in sustainable development goal 13 to take urgent action to climate change and its impacts is to have a recovery plan so that if a developing country or any country gets hit by a natural disaster and need aid that they get the appropriate help in the appropriate time. Although some of the other affects that climate change has on water are a lot more devastating over a short period of time, erosion can have a large impact on shorelines and is lowly making many islands in the pacific start to shrink and funding and resources need to be sent to them to help them save there islands.
-What elements would you incorporate if you had to build and action/target that addressed water, Indigenous peoples, and non-indigenous people. Provide a brief rationale that justifies each element.
If I had to incorporate another target in the SDG13 that addressed water, Indigenous peoples, and non-indigenous people it would be that there need to be a stronger connection between both Indigenous and non-indigenous whether it’s in developed or developing countries so that we can broaden our understanding how each community is trying to adapt to climate change, for each other to help each other out and for communities across both developing and developed countries to collaborate to help combat the affects of climate change and to bring positive change.
Fresh Water Availability:
-What are the most relevant actions/targets proposed in SDG#13?
The most relevant targets suggested in SDG#13 are education, awareness-raising and the strengthening of resilience, by 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, as well as integrating climate change measures into national policies and promoting mechanisms and technology in least developed countries.
It is important that everyone is aware of the effects and consequences of climate change and everyone and the politics should do and/or should be able to do something against it.
-How do SDG #13 targets respond to the challenges created by the effects of climate change in water in both Indigenous and non-indigenous communities?
Effects of climate change in water are e.g. droughts, floods, natural disasters… The targets try to cover most of this issues. Through strengthening the resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards they want to reduce the damage and deaths caused by natural disasters (floods, tsunami…). Since water is essential for living they want to make climate change measures part of the policies which increases a countries ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development.
Some of the other targets focus on the awareness of the people and the support of developing countries to guarantee access to fresh water as well as raising money to support any actions taken against climate change.
-What other areas do you think should be taken into account?
I think the indigenous communities should be a bigger part of the whole negotiations since climate change is directly affecting them on their e.g. islands or through droughts in their countries. I also think reaching the Paris Agreements’ emission goals should be taken into account as well as focusing on new goals all over the world.
Other areas that should be taken into account would be the pacific islands as their homes are being lost. Their islands are slowly being swallowed by the rising sea waters but are still in drought with little freshwater. This is a problem as their homes aren’t only be lost but they have nowhere else to go food. Another area is in Africa as there are families and groups of people that are constantly moving in the desert to try and find new areas to have access to clean drinking water.
-What elements would you incorporate if you had to build and action/target that addressed water, Indigenous peoples, and non-indigenous people? Provide a brief rationale that justifies each element.
A target would be to provide a drinking hole for all of the families and tribes that are constantly looking for clean drinking water. This would save a lot of families for walking for days every couple of weeks when trying to look after a family with fresh drinking water availability.
Link to the Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/
Link to Green Climate Fund: http://www.greenclimate.fund/home
I would like to thank the users Jasmine Tiller-Pimlico and Tegan Lewis-Pimlico for the Changes in Water/Weather and Fresh Water Availability blog sections.
