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Friday March 29, 2024

Expert talks about challenge to UN SDGs

By Bureau report
March 13, 2020

PESHAWAR: A United Nations expert has underlined the urgent need to align all public and private sector policies with sustainable development agenda and climate change trends.

Jamil Ahmad, UN expert on Climate Change & Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Director, UN Environment Programme, New York office, delivered a keynote speech to students and faculty members at a symposium. Community Medicine Department, Northwest School of Medicine Peshawar had organized the symposium. The speaker pointed out that the future of the planet was under threat as biodiversity and forests were shrinking, emissions rising, alarming glacier melting, water resource (aquifers and rivers) depleting.

He said all this was harming agriculture, food productivity and loss of livelihoods. The expert said health hazards due to air pollution, contaminated water and poor waste management have compounded critical problems. Citing the links between environmental degradation and health, Jamil Ahmad said “7 million people died prematurely worldwide every year due to both indoor air quality and outdoor (ambient) pollution. Many more were affected by serious respiratory diseases causing economic losses and financial implications for the marginalized people and communities.

Reminding the audience that the “unsustainable patterns of consumption and production and demands of a growing population (11 billion by the year 2100) have pushed the planetary resources to a tipping point. Pakistan, too, like other developing counties, faced serious consequences of global warming and climate change as it was the 7th most vulnerable nation to climate change impact. He said SDGs offered an internationally agreed roadmap and framework to achieve development and combat climate change. Policy changes at all levels for achieving the SDGs are, therefore, an urgent imperative, he added. The expert said up to 2 billion people still do not have basic sanitation (toilet) facilities, with at least 10% of the world’s population now consuming food irrigated by wastewater.

Poor sanitation is linked to transmission of diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, polio and exacerbates stunting. Inadequate sanitation is estimated to cause 432, 000 diarrheal deaths annually, and a major factor in several tropical diseases which also contributes to malnutrition. According to the latest United Nations estimates of the world's population, in 2019 youth numbered 1.8 billion persons between ages 15 and 24 years worldwide. “You have a key role to play in the decision-making and in the implementation of the 5 “P” of the Agenda 2030 namely, People, Planet, Peace, Prosperity and Partnerships,” he said.