Creating the climate for action: Lessons from the UN global goals process

It took more than four years and skillful backroom negotiation to get to this week’s victory — the ratification of the next global development agenda, the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, that will guide the world for the next 15 years. This achievement is worthy of celebration and offers hope for the next set of international negotiations that have been nearly 20 years in the making — the upcoming climate talks in Paris.

If the path to the global goals was pocked with small potholes, however, the road to a climate agreement is lined with deep craters. Addressing climate change will be even more difficult than agreeing on the 17 global goals, as climate change raises complicated questions: Who is responsible for action? Who pays? Underpinning these questions are charged debates around the right to develop versus the right to pollute.

Yet the global goals and climate change negotiations are inextricably linked — the lives and livelihoods of those living in poverty are at the core of both. Failing in Paris would undermine the nascent global goals and development writ large. Thankfully, we’ve learned important lessons in gaining consensus around the global goals.