Three years on since the landmark adoption of the Paris climate accord and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, various efforts have been made at the global, regional, and national levels to implement these agreements.
However, significant challenges remain, including unclear consensus about how sustainability can be integrated into non-environmental arenas and ways to pursue a non-siloed approach to sustainability, not only throughout Asia but across the world. At the same time, all countries continue to face obstacles with implementing the critical social and economic structural reforms required for moving beyond a low-carbon society towards decarbonisation and taking the steps necessary for realising the transformative potential of the SDGs.
Maximising synergies while minimising trade-offs among goals and targets under the SDGs underlines the need for integrated approaches that contribute to climate stability, the sustainable management of resource flows and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems on which human development depends. As such, identifying how true integration can be achieved remains key for addressing specific sustainability challenges, including climate and air pollution co-benefits, environment and poverty linkages, and the water-food-energy nexus, among others.
Directing the transformation to a more sustainable future therefore involves redefining long-term socioeconomic development planning, aligning policy objectives with institutional framework reforms, and enhancing actions and collaboration between government and non-government stakeholders. It also critically depends on improving the appropriate conditions for innovation, including by coordinating and financing the promotion of new technologies and business models needed for driving the transition at scale.
Against a backdrop of stimulating panel presentations led by top-level experts, ISAP2018 will also commemorate IGES’s 20th Anniversary. In honour of the occasion, the institute will publish several important flagship reports highlighting transformational opportunities for international development partners, including governments, business, academia and civil society, to work together on realising a safe, inclusive and sustainable future.
Along with showcasing ongoing IGES research projects and interventions, ISAP2018 will examine the effectiveness of a range of strategies and solutions towards this end, including the integration of SDGs into business and city-led actions, low-carbon technology, carbon pricing, and socio-ecological sound landscape approaches, among many others.
The global community fully recognises the imperative of collective action on climate change and sustainable development. Taking stock of progress and priorities for the future, ISAP2018 will seek to raise ambitions in Asia and the Pacific for accelerating the transition to a more equitable, low-carbon, climate-resilient world.
