Tom, interesting thoughts on the sustainable development goals, but what may have eluded your research is that some of the largest contributors to climate change have made insignificant progress in fixing their own emissions, whilst remaining highly vocal on other countries contributions.
When we look at the world’s largest economies, we find that the United States ranks 127th globally
on the Just Transition Score and far worse than any of the others, including China (108th), Russia
(119th), India (77th) Japan (55th), Germany (49th), United Kingdom (31st) and France (13th).
The US is the worst performing country in the G7. It performs badly not because it is rich, but
because it has a toxic combination of high carbon emissions and relatively low social progress. The
US will only achieve a just transition by tackling both problems in the short-term. (Just Transitions - Social Progress Imperative - 2022)
Having started on a high baseline for SDG achievement it is almost criminal that these nations sit at COP and put forward ideology for climate change reduction when they have the largest resources at their disposal to make significant strides to addressing global attempts of achieving the desired emission reduction.
"what may have eluded your research is that some of the largest contributors to climate change have made insignificant progress in fixing their own emissions, whilst remaining highly vocal on other countries contributions" - I wouldn't say that I'd missed that point, more that it wasn't the focus of the post, which was about the risks of using goals as a tool for motivation.
I do fully understand your point, and strongly agree with the critique. I don't know what Australia's position in that ranking would be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't even worse than the US: the Morrison government did everything that it could to _prevent_ facing up to the country's abysmal record on climate emissions and climate-change, and it's only now that we have a new government here that these issues are _at last_ being taken seriously.
Sadly, I don't see the US changing any time soon: it's not just the climate-performance that's toxic there, but most of the political climate too. In the longer term, I wouldn't be surprised if the US doesn't become as much of a pariah-nation in geopolitics as much as Russia is now: different reasons, for sure, but arguably just as toxic for the sustainability and survivability for the world as a whole. Oh well.
Agreed in many ways Tom, but I was addressing a point you made as follows " So why are goals so problematic as a means for motivation? The main reason is that once the goal is achieved, they usually kill motivation stone-dead" my issue with that is that if the countries with resources to spare are not achieving the goals, then what hope has the poorer nations of achieving said goal, making the goal irrelevant to all parties.
You mentioned Australia, well you are sitting at 105 with a score of 75.37 and the scary part is that you have progressed 3.65 points over the last decade. so, by simple deduction it would take plus/ minus 60 years to achieve the SDG targets at the current pace.
Something that neither of us will see completed without a huge turnaround.
On "Goals are problematic for motivation", the other example I gave was that of the moon landings: once the initial mission had been achieved, the motivation to continue onward fell off like a cliff. (The only part of the later moon landings that excited most people was the desire for the failed Apollo 13 mission to get back alive.) Another well-known business example was Lexus Cars, who set themselves the goal 'Beat Benz', and nearly collapsed just after they'd achieved that goal: they then had to take a very different path to recover the motivation. That was the reason why I was concerned that the SDGs had been framed as goals, rather than as ongoing missions.
On "my issue with that is that if the countries with resources to spare are not achieving the goals, then what hope has the poorer nations of achieving said goal, making the goal irrelevant to all parties" - yes, agreed, that's a very real concern. Again, though, I'd suggest that the framing _as_ goals rather than as ongoing missions is part of the reason why success is currently receding further and further away. (Emphasis: "_part of_ the reason" - there are all too other many factors too, as we both know all too well. :-( )
On Australia at 105, I'm not surprised: the previous government (that had been around sice before the SDGs were launched, had pretty much done as much as they could to sabotage any progress. The new government looks somewhat better in that regard, and there's at least _some_ hope that we'll see better progress. Maybe.
Agreed, the COP conferences have delivered two main agreements signed by 194 countries governments namely the Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement the first in 2005 and the latter in 2013, extremely little has been delivered in terms of these agreements and Guttierez (UN Secretary General) recently made a statement that "we are on the road to hell with our foot firmly on the accelerator"
You are right that goals do not work, but if governments are paying scant regard to its responsibilities and accountabilities very little direction is forthcoming to guide company or individual contributions to rectify the matter.
Although I am not an Eco-warrior in this regard a complete re-work of countries policies and governance is required if we are to make any measurable progress in the short-term and without an agreed governance framework of as-is, to-be, and gap how will we ever be able to produce common data reporting on progress.
Motivation will always need to be a consideration but when the governments are seen to be side-stepping the issues it is almost impossible to generate any motivation at the lower levels.
"a complete re-work of countries policies and governance is required if we are to make any measurable progress" - hence my work on responsibility-based economics. (In practice the present failures could be said to be due to the flipside of a possession-based economics, namely 'anti-possession' - otherwise known as declaring all of these issues as Somebody Else's Problem' in order to evade very real and necessary responsibilities...)
"All quite disturbing, to say the least" - yeah. :-( Yet we each do what we can, yes? :-)
Tom, interesting thoughts on the sustainable development goals, but what may have eluded your research is that some of the largest contributors to climate change have made insignificant progress in fixing their own emissions, whilst remaining highly vocal on other countries contributions.
When we look at the world’s largest economies, we find that the United States ranks 127th globally
on the Just Transition Score and far worse than any of the others, including China (108th), Russia
(119th), India (77th) Japan (55th), Germany (49th), United Kingdom (31st) and France (13th).
The US is the worst performing country in the G7. It performs badly not because it is rich, but
because it has a toxic combination of high carbon emissions and relatively low social progress. The
US will only achieve a just transition by tackling both problems in the short-term. (Just Transitions - Social Progress Imperative - 2022)
Having started on a high baseline for SDG achievement it is almost criminal that these nations sit at COP and put forward ideology for climate change reduction when they have the largest resources at their disposal to make significant strides to addressing global attempts of achieving the desired emission reduction.
Thanks as always, Robert.
"what may have eluded your research is that some of the largest contributors to climate change have made insignificant progress in fixing their own emissions, whilst remaining highly vocal on other countries contributions" - I wouldn't say that I'd missed that point, more that it wasn't the focus of the post, which was about the risks of using goals as a tool for motivation.
I do fully understand your point, and strongly agree with the critique. I don't know what Australia's position in that ranking would be, but I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't even worse than the US: the Morrison government did everything that it could to _prevent_ facing up to the country's abysmal record on climate emissions and climate-change, and it's only now that we have a new government here that these issues are _at last_ being taken seriously.
Sadly, I don't see the US changing any time soon: it's not just the climate-performance that's toxic there, but most of the political climate too. In the longer term, I wouldn't be surprised if the US doesn't become as much of a pariah-nation in geopolitics as much as Russia is now: different reasons, for sure, but arguably just as toxic for the sustainability and survivability for the world as a whole. Oh well.
Agreed in many ways Tom, but I was addressing a point you made as follows " So why are goals so problematic as a means for motivation? The main reason is that once the goal is achieved, they usually kill motivation stone-dead" my issue with that is that if the countries with resources to spare are not achieving the goals, then what hope has the poorer nations of achieving said goal, making the goal irrelevant to all parties.
You mentioned Australia, well you are sitting at 105 with a score of 75.37 and the scary part is that you have progressed 3.65 points over the last decade. so, by simple deduction it would take plus/ minus 60 years to achieve the SDG targets at the current pace.
Something that neither of us will see completed without a huge turnaround.
Oh Well.
On "Goals are problematic for motivation", the other example I gave was that of the moon landings: once the initial mission had been achieved, the motivation to continue onward fell off like a cliff. (The only part of the later moon landings that excited most people was the desire for the failed Apollo 13 mission to get back alive.) Another well-known business example was Lexus Cars, who set themselves the goal 'Beat Benz', and nearly collapsed just after they'd achieved that goal: they then had to take a very different path to recover the motivation. That was the reason why I was concerned that the SDGs had been framed as goals, rather than as ongoing missions.
On "my issue with that is that if the countries with resources to spare are not achieving the goals, then what hope has the poorer nations of achieving said goal, making the goal irrelevant to all parties" - yes, agreed, that's a very real concern. Again, though, I'd suggest that the framing _as_ goals rather than as ongoing missions is part of the reason why success is currently receding further and further away. (Emphasis: "_part of_ the reason" - there are all too other many factors too, as we both know all too well. :-( )
On Australia at 105, I'm not surprised: the previous government (that had been around sice before the SDGs were launched, had pretty much done as much as they could to sabotage any progress. The new government looks somewhat better in that regard, and there's at least _some_ hope that we'll see better progress. Maybe.
Agreed, the COP conferences have delivered two main agreements signed by 194 countries governments namely the Kyoto protocol and the Paris agreement the first in 2005 and the latter in 2013, extremely little has been delivered in terms of these agreements and Guttierez (UN Secretary General) recently made a statement that "we are on the road to hell with our foot firmly on the accelerator"
You are right that goals do not work, but if governments are paying scant regard to its responsibilities and accountabilities very little direction is forthcoming to guide company or individual contributions to rectify the matter.
Although I am not an Eco-warrior in this regard a complete re-work of countries policies and governance is required if we are to make any measurable progress in the short-term and without an agreed governance framework of as-is, to-be, and gap how will we ever be able to produce common data reporting on progress.
Motivation will always need to be a consideration but when the governments are seen to be side-stepping the issues it is almost impossible to generate any motivation at the lower levels.
All quite disturbing, to say the least.
Yes, exactly. :-(
"a complete re-work of countries policies and governance is required if we are to make any measurable progress" - hence my work on responsibility-based economics. (In practice the present failures could be said to be due to the flipside of a possession-based economics, namely 'anti-possession' - otherwise known as declaring all of these issues as Somebody Else's Problem' in order to evade very real and necessary responsibilities...)
"All quite disturbing, to say the least" - yeah. :-( Yet we each do what we can, yes? :-)