[MUSIC PLAYING] How can we get 193 countries to move in the same direction for a better tomorrow? In today's podcast, we talk with Guillaume La Fortune, vice president and head of the Paris office of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the largest global network of scientists and practitioners dedicated to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. We discussed the intersections of sustainability, global progress, and the daunting challenges we face, from the impact of war on climate initiatives to transforming data into narratives that drive change. We explore how global cooperation, education, and technology pave the way for a sustainable future and look at lessons of history and the power of diplomacy in shaping our path forward. Guillaume La Fortune, welcome to One Planet podcast in the creative process. Wonderful to be with you, Mia. Thank you for the invitation. Before we even dig into the Sustainable Development Report and Index, which you've just published, tell us a little bit about your journey. I'm a French and Canadian citizen. I've got my university degrees in Canada. I'm always being interested in public policy. My master's degree is in public policy, public administration. And I am currently indeed the vice president of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. I think there's been four major threads in my journey. First of all, I've always been interested in making a positive impact in the world. And I think this is why I care about public policy. Then I always care about bringing facts, analytics, data to the debate in order to promote impact. And throughout my career, I've always been part of departments that are in charge of statistics, data, whether it was at the OECD, currently at the SDSN, and even in my first position in the Ministry of Economic Affairs in the government of Quebec and Canada. So that's a second big motivator in my journey. The third point is I've always wanted to be also in the room with those that change the world. And I think there's different ways to do this. But my way is to try to contribute in the modest way with the analytical work that I do. There's other ways to do it, including the way you do it by interviewing people and journalists and so on. And who knows, maybe in a couple of years, my career will take this turn. But that's a big motivator to be in the room with people that are changing the world. And I think at SDSN, this is one of the great opportunities. Finally, another motivator in my journey has been to try to think about what can be good and what can I do for having a positive impact on the next generation. And I would say especially over the past six years, which is the age of my older daughter, I have two kids. So what can I do to make this world a better place for my kids but also for the future generations? - There must be a lot of psychology diplomas. As you say, statistics and evidence, but how do you present that? You know, sort of makes that impact. And you're really changing governance for the better. - Right, absolutely. This is what we're trying to do. The SDSN has been set up to mobilize research and science for the sustainable development goals. And each year we try to come up with a fair and sound diagnosis of how countries are doing in terms of their progress on the 17 sustainable development goals, which were adopted back in 2015 by all UN member states. The first time in human history that we have common goal for the entire world. So we try to bring the data and the statistics, but I think you're very right. And for me, the data and the statistics is not enough. It needs to be turned also into narrative and into stories in order to have impacts. This was actually one of the greatest advice from my first bus at the OECD in the environment department who was a wonderful technician, a kind of attrition, but who told me one day, it's all about telling nice stories with the data. And so this is what we try to do, especially with this SDG index, each year is to have sound methodologies, but also to translate this into actionable insights for generating a DNA of the data impact. - Yes. And how you communicate those stories to different countries, because sometimes it's say, you want to put across a certain emotional how this translates the people from the pixels and the statistics, but then different countries would be receptive to different kinds of storytelling and to recognize that so that they are seen in the story. - Yes, absolutely. I mean, the bottom line is when we do this SDG index, the dashboards, we are always in close interaction with UN custodian agencies, but also national governments. So before and after we released the report, we try to be as proactive in, first of all, consulting to make sure that the data is correct. And then explaining the results, once the results are published. So we get a lot of reactions and requests from countries. And what we've seen throughout the years with this tool in particular, and of course the SDSN does many other things, is that it's being used extensively when countries go to the United Nations to present their so-called voluntary national review. So we have to remember that back in 2015, when the SDGs were adopted, there was an agreement that each year around 40 countries would go in front of the international community and present their action plan. And quite often, the baseline assessment that is used and the diagnosis tool that is used to estimate the distance of countries to target is the SDG index. So it's being used extensively. And more and more, we see it. It's being used also by institutions in countries to actually monitor year-on-year their progress. So this is exactly the kind of impact that we want to have, to have a sound methodology, which is then used by national governments to monitor their progress, but also define strategies and pathways to move towards sustainable development. - And suits, in the one point I see you want to inspire. You are inspiring change, and to move through that inertia, the standardcy, sometimes you have to tell the truth, and now the findings are that only 16% of targets are on track. So how do you keep that motivation when we're only making progress and 16%? - Right, right, right. Well, I think that's very interesting. And I think here we're digging into the actual result and findings of this year's edition. The number of your coding is absolutely right. Out of all of the targets that we track, only 16% are estimated to be on track. And again, this is an agenda that combines not only environmental development, but also social development, economic development and good governance, because sometimes these DGs are just associated with climate or environment. But this is an integrated agenda that aims to tackle environment, but also social aspects at the same time. 16% of the targets are on track. Currently, none of the SDGs are on track to be achieved at the global level. The SDGs that are particularly off track are SDG2, the short title is Zero Hunger. The truth is it also captures unsustainable agricultural obesity, diets and agricultural productivity. SDG 11 on cities as well. SDG 14 and 15 on life below water and terrestrial biodiversity. And also SDG 16 round piece and strong institutions. If I go more specifically in terms of specific targets that are particularly off track, we see a huge rise, for instance, in unsustainable diets, which we capture through obesity rate. The decline in the press, freedom index, the red list index for terrestrial biodiversity, sustainable nitrogen management, which we include under SDG2, on sustainable agricultural procedures. And also partly due to COVID, partly due to other reasons, life expectancy at birth under SDG3. And then because we ask also about the positives, I mean, I think we see a bit more positive trends on access to basic infrastructure, often covered under SDG9 also, to some extent SDG3 and SDG4, although it varies a lot across the countries. But even here progress tends to be too slow and very uneven across countries and regions. - I like to see the progress, but 2030 seems just around the corner. So, I mean, what are the plans for beyond 2030 or for reaching some of those goals by 2030? - Right. So I think there's one thing that is also important to understand is that there's what's going on at the global level. And then there's a country level and at the regional level, there are countries and regions that are actually making quite significant progress on this agenda. So what we documented this year in the report is that essentially the BRICS countries, for instance, are making quite significant progress. So when we started tracking this in 2015, they were below the world average right now. They are above the world average SDG index. East and South Asia are also making quite significant progress. And if we go down one level to the level of countries that are making the most progress on this agenda, we see countries like Benin, Butan, Cambodia, Indonesia, but also countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Togo, UAE, Uzbekistan, that are making quite significant progress. And among the countries I just listed, some of them have very strong long-term planning departments. For instance, I think about Indonesia. But also some of them have developed very innovative tools like sustainable development goals, bond, so sovereign financing instruments structured around the SDGs. That's the case for a country like Benin or Uzbekistan. And I think those are examples we can build on in order to achieve the goals that we need to build on what has been achieved and the progress that we've made, including by developing sovereign investment bonds around the SDGs in the next phase of this agenda. So as you say, there's six years left. I think it's very clear that we won't achieve all of those goals by 2030. One of the recommendations that we are making in this year's Sustainable Development Report is perhaps we will need eventually to extend this agenda to 2050. This would align with the Paris Climate Agreement. And we will need to build a narrative so that it's not just postponing the homework that needs to be handed in, but perhaps raising a little bit ambition and bringing new topics into the mix. For instance, artificial intelligence back in 2015 was not mentioned in the official 2030 agenda document. So that's for sure a topic that might need to be incorporated in the next agenda that will continue the SDGs beyond 2030. - I'd like to know how AI can be used to implement or accelerate a lot of these changes. There's so many conflicting use on it as a way of perhaps balancing the power grid or democratizing education. And also taking into account it can also threaten our democracy and journalism and all those things. The infrastructures are growing in some countries at a really quite rapid pace. We talk about petrol states and the clean energy transition. And you know, China becoming the first electrostate and yet it's imbalanced. The reported index highlights a significant gap in financing for sustainable development, especially in low income countries. And while renewable energy is on the rise, I believe around 675 million people still lack electricity. So what measures do you think are essential to expand energy access and support a global transition to clean energy? - Right. So I think infrastructure is of course absolutely key for this agenda. At the end of the day, the SDGs are the vision but it's also an investment agenda into human capital education, health, social protection, but also in infrastructure, right? I mean, renewable energy, water, sanitation. And so there's been various estimates that have been put forward in terms of the financing gap to achieve the SDGs. And often they tend to focus on the infrastructure investment gap to a large extent. And so I think, you know, there's been different estimates out there, but essentially the financing gap, especially for developing economies, would be somewhere between one and four trillion USD per year that we need to be mobilized compared to what is currently being mobilized right now. Those are estimates that have been provided by the IMF, by the OECD, by ourselves, the ASN, but also the most recent report has been by UNCTAD. These estimates are probably underestimated because perhaps we underestimate the investments that are needed for climate mitigation, for instance, which requires investment in new types of infrastructure but also adaptation as well, kind of a lasting damage. So the point here is when we look at this financing gap, which again tracks to a large extent, the gap in the infrastructure part of the sustainable development goals, one to four trillion might seem like a very large number, right? For you, for me, it's extremely hard for developing economies when we try to see what it means per country. This is perhaps a financing gap of 20 or 30% of GDP per year that we would need to be mobilized to invest in the SDGs. But when we take a step back and look at this from the global economy, one or four trillion is basically equivalent to between one and four percent of global GDP. Global GDP is 100 trillion USD a year. Global savings, so the amount of money that in principle can be channeled towards investment, hopefully sustainable investments, close to 30 trillion USD per year, right? So you were mentioning the importance of speaking truth to power. I think the story needs to be told that there is actually no financial impossibility in achieving those goals and investing into the infrastructures that are needed into the SDGs. But it's basically a question of political leadership, in particular to align the global financing flows to achieve sustainable infrastructure and sustainable development and help the countries that need it the most. This is why at SDSN we try to support this whole reform of the global financial architecture because financing is a big part of the story, of course. So you can talk about the global financing flows. I mean, just boil it down for people, simply, you know, where we find this money or is there ways to public-private partnerships? When we publish this year the Sustainable Development Report, the title this year is the SDGs and the UN Summit of the Future, because what we're trying to do is to support this very important summit that is coming up in September, which has been cut forward by the UN Secretary-General, to basically come up with a new vision for the UN system. As part of the summit of the future, there's been essentially a number of major themes that have been identified. The first one is sustainable development and financing development. Second one is international peace and security, science, technology, and innovation and youth, and future generations and global governance. Because those are the major topics and of course the financing is an important part. At SDSN we believe that to achieve those goals, there's basically three major pillars. If I want to simplify it, first of all, we need global cooperation and peace. I mean, you don't achieve SDGs in the middle of a raging war. And also, there's benefits in global cooperation, but also regional cooperation. When we think about, you know, climate mitigation, renewable energy, there's benefits in collaborating with the neighboring countries. So that's the first thing where the second one is financing, of course, because this is an investment agenda. And the third one is countries also need to do their homework and prepare long-term plans, long-term pathways to achieve those sustainable development goals. And this is the agenda we are trying to support. But the bottom line is a large part of the world. It is not able to make progress on the agenda because they are basically facing chronic shortfalls in financing for sustainable development. And I mentioned the SDG gap, which again is probably underestimated, but it's still good to have an overall figure in the number. And so I think it's not impossible to fill in this SDG financing gap. But we need to think about this reform of the global financial architecture, which, you know, we see a number of leaders promoting this reform, including, for instance, the Prime Minister from Barbados. Yeah, more play that has been extremely active in this direction. And the UN Secretary General has also called for an SDG stimulus. What specific reforms do you feel are necessary in global financial terms to address this issue and to ensure more equitable progress? And do you think that, you know, the public and private sector should come together more to resolve these issues and how? This is a complex discussion, but I think there's three important levers. First of all, there's the scaling up of the financing and disbursements of multilateral development banks. And by multilateral development banks, I think about the World Bank, but also all those regional development banks in determining in the development bank, the African development bank, the Islamic development bank, and so on and so forth. I think those banks are very well equipped to do two things. First of all, to borrow at lower rates than what usually national countries can do because the loans are guaranteed by a larger range of countries. And second of all, from a technical perspective, they can also think from a regional investment perspective, which I think is very interesting, as I said, since some of the observative investments require also regional cooperation. So scaling up the level of ambition of the multilateral development banks. The second lever in my mind is to reform the private capital markets and their regulation. And here, I think there's really a big question around the credit rating agencies. And here, the question is, you know, how come, and I think COVID was remarkable in showing the disparity, which is almost grotesque, in the ability from rich countries to borrow at extremely low rates in the markets, versus developing countries that often either have no access to capital markets or can only borrow at 11, 12, 13, 14 percent interest rates with very short majorities, and on what basis, you know? And so how do we shift the overall mindset from short-term liquidity risks to long-term potential growth opportunities of investing into sustainable development, which would require to understand a little bit better the level of ambition of national countries in moving towards sustainable development, because I do believe that when you plan to invest in education, health, renewable energy, poverty eradication, and so on, you do increase growth potential, and therefore your capacity to repay the principle and the interest on your loans, in which case, a country that is more ambitious towards moving towards the SDGs, we could imagine a system where it has access to financing at lower rates and with longer securities. But this is outside of currently the methodologies of credit rating agencies. So this is an important game changer. And then the final point is the question of debt restructuring in other two sovereign financing instruments, so debt for SDG swaps, debt for nature swaps, I mentioned earlier on those SDG bonds that are being developed. And perhaps the final point is there's a growing debate also around the need to institute global taxation, for example, on CO2 emission air and sea travel, financial transactions, because at the end of the day, I mean, we could think about a system where we deal with global problems with basically global revenues that would be generated through safeguard global commons, essentially. Yes, and so it's a smart, young game. We've just seen, we just have the elections in France. We have elections all over the world in the coming months. And some of these fears, you know, it's bound up with migration or migration and immigration. And, you know, just smart if you have citizens who are concerned about this voting, emotionally, harassment, or not, it's just smart to invest or support sustainability of countries if you have those fears. How do you think that the elections in France might shift our approach to sustainability and just reflect our actions around the world in this time? Right. So what I can do is to start by thinking a step back about what we do at SDG, what is our core mandate. We believe that to achieve goals that are complex, we need two things. Global cooperation and peace, financing, and long-term pathways. And those long-term pathways must be supported by scrum, monitoring systems who track progress. In 2012, the UN Security General at the time, Ban Ki-moon, decided to basically set up and mandate the new organization to mobilize research and science for the SDGs. And at the time, the SDGs were not yet adopted, so part of our role was to make recommendations on what could follow by the time the millennium did the ongoing goals, the MDGs, which were adopted from 2000 to 2015. And in 2012, it was the whole discussion around, okay, well, what will come next? It was a whole debate on whether the next set of goals should be, again, only primarily focusing on developing countries or whether they should be global. Do we need a specific SDG on cities or are cities transversal? So, you know, there were a lot of discussions and so our earlier reports at SDGs and have been around what could be the next set of goals. And then the goals were, of course, adopted. And I think a key term in our organization is sustainable development solutions network. So, our goal is to come up with solutions for this agenda. And in this sense, we do four major things. First of all, we try to advise the UN leadership, the leadership of other international institutions, multilateral development banks, national governments, local governments, on SDG policies, analytics, and planning and monitoring. Second of all, we mobilized the largest global network of researchers and scientists that aimed to implement the SDG sometimes at a very micro level within their university curricular, within their campus, but also at the city level. And often they help also their government when they develop national action plans. Third, we develop our own tools. The SDG Index is one. We do a lot of work on some long-term pathways scenarios, including for food and land pathways. And then fourth, is education for sustainable development. And I think this is where to answer your question. I think at the end of the day, I mean, what we care about is evidence-based policies, science-based policies, the science-policy interface. But indeed, we don't have public opinions that support those kinds of policies. This is an issue. So, this is why this fourth pillar of our work on education for sustainable development, the SDG Academy, tries to bring to the world at very low cost, often free of charge, education to the entire world online for educating the future generations, but also current practitioners around sustainable development. Yes, so while access to quality education remains a challenge, how do you feel we can extend the benefits of modern education and technology to the all those underserved regions beyond what you're doing and what can be done to narrow the global educational and technological gaps? Many parts of the world, there's a huge issue around access to basic education still. We're here in Paris, we have UNESCO. Nearby, there's still a significant financing gap to achieve the education goal. And of course, the achievement of the education goal underpins the achievement of all of the other SDGs. So, this is one of the priorities. But the other thing, which in my mind is also challenging, especially when we look at the latest results from the OECD PISA, that he which primarily looks at the OECD member countries which are relatively advanced economies. I mean, first of all, with COVID, we've seen a drop in the learning outcomes of 15-year-old students. But also, when it comes to the ability to read and make a difference between a fact and an opinion, I think the average in OECD countries is 7% of students are able to differentiate between something which is a fact and something which is an opinion. And in this context of social media, fake news, post-truth environment, this is something that our community around sustainable development should care about. If we want science-based policies, we need public opinions that are also on board, you know? And that in my mind is a big question for the community. Absolutely. Oh, yes. And I'm bored and they truly understand what you're doing so that they can back you with full force. And it's an interesting question, because we mentioned a little bit before there about AI. On the one hand, I feel what you're identifying is that our technologies have increased levels of ADHD and students are saying they can't read long texts and interpret it the way they would in the past because we're so distracted. And on the other hand, then you see, oh, well, AI could democratize education and open education pathways for people who don't have access to it at the moment. Right. Why the leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals back in 2015, there was a recognition that technology and innovation can play a big role, of course, in achieving those goals. But there wasn't much specifically on artificial intelligence. So I think this is definitely a major topic for those that are involved in the design of the next agenda for Sustainable Development that will continue beyond 2030. And the bottom line is, I think, as every technology, and there are wonderful opportunities with AI. There's also a number of threats, and it needs to be carefully managed. I think global agreements on the regulations of AI will be needed. I mean, we stopped the proliferation, basically of AI driven and autonomous weapons or misinformation and inequalities. A good starting point is what's been done in the 2020 Montreal statement of sustainability in the digital age. This was an international group of businesses, some governments, and science leaders that laid out the foundations for targets that ensure that technologies can be used for the shared prosperity volume. So AI, in my mind, can be very positive for this agenda, but there's, of course, a real question around regulation. And going back to our bread and butter at the SDSN, I think this is really something we should think about. How do we incorporate AI in the next set of goals that we continue the SDGs? I think there's been a great article in nature lately around extending the sustainable development goals to 2050 that discusses this issue around how to incorporate AI within the next set of goals. And essentially, what the article is saying, if there's two options, either we incorporate AI targets and regulations within some of the existing goals. So it could be under SDG4 on education, could be on SDG9 around industry and innovation. Or we could also think about a separate goals. Yes, definitely, we're seeing the ways it will be changing with the future of work, as well of course, we venture future of education. And I guess just to be careful, we don't improve our models with another hyper-industrialist model when we're trying to scale back and respect our planetary balance. So we discussed what you do at SDSN. How do you think that the elections in France might shift our approach to sustainability and effect achievement of the sustainable development goals? I mean, we're sitting here in Paris. Of course, we just had the results of the parliamentary elections. But the reality is that we had two elections back to back, right? So we had European elections and then a snap three weeks parliamentary election, following of the solution of the parliament by President Macron. I don't have insider information. I'm just sharing my personal views on the situation. But I think if we separate those two elections, if we look first at the European elections, the results are very clear. The winner has been the Rassamre-Mann Massenal, which is sometimes called the extreme right. But the Rassamre-Mann Massenal, by Chauvin, Bardella, and Margaret then has won 30 seats in the election out of 81 and then followed by Ensemble, the party president of Macron, and Viveira Europe, which is qualified often at center left. Then actually, following this election, President Macron decided to dissolve the parliament and called for snap parliamentary elections. I think what's interesting here is that the goal was, in the own words of President Macron, he was calling for the great clarification. And in my mind, after last Sunday's results, we're now in a state of great confusion. We have basically three blocks right now that represent about 80 to 85% of the future parliament, with some difference in terms of seeds, but you know, sort of similar size. No absolute majority in parliament, that in my mind, one of the two of the left-wing, technically one, even though they don't have an absolute majority with 188 seats, but a clear loser, which in my mind is Eméria Macron's, pardon, they have around 160 seats now. This is now from 245 seats after the 2022 election, and down from 345 seats, during the first term of President Macron's, so it's the story of declining confidence and trusting the current administration. Yes, we see ideological divides, threatening the stability of democracy, and economic growth remains uneven with rising inequality and underemployment, so how can we ensure progress doesn't exacerbate division? In the current context, and in the short run, I think, first of all, whenever you call citizens to vote, you need to respect the vote, and in France, the Republican tradition wouldn't mean trying to identify a prime minister from the Rui Poppe lab, that technically have the larger number of seats in the current parliament. But also, I mean, more broadly speaking, I think, first of all, the timing of these sad elections is somehow questionable that President Macron was not forced to call for elections after the European elections, and, you know, it creates uncertainty and distraction when France is all about to welcome the world as part of the Olympic Games. So I think this is an interesting moment. I also think there's a real risk considering the composition of the parliament that we will end up in a political deadlock. At the time when French people are calling for a clear vision on major national issues, whether it's creation, security, health, education, but also deficit and debt management, but also weakening the voice of France in Europe and internationally. You know, and we might end up in a situation where we will have a new prime minister, but because things are so divided in the parliament, there might be so-called "Moseon de Sancio" whereby the prime minister will be overthrown quite quickly. We might go back to elections in a year with the new Viserys Hume. So this is creating a situation for France where it's really hard to wait on the current debates that are happening internationally. I think the situation in France perhaps reflects a broader situation in many European countries where we see growing polarization, fragmentation of our societies. I think there's good data that came out around the trust in some of the G7 leaders. Many countries are facing a move towards more conservative government in Europe, of course, including Sweden, Finland, Italy, Netherlands. What strategies could be employed to ensure continued progress despite the political shifts in France and elsewhere in the world? Many countries are having a hard time forming a government, adopting a budget on the budget side in the case in Germany. We've also seen political violence with the shooting of prime minister Sicho a few weeks ago from the Stilvar Republic. So I think this is a very tense situation, and the risk in my mind is a backlash against the agenda 2030, the European Green Deal and the support for long-term transformations. When we have all those political deadlocks, fragmentation, political violence, and so on, there's a risk that we're not able institutionally to advance those long-term goals and objectives. Europe adopted back in 2019, the European Green Deal, which at the time we saw the great example of leadership on this issue, and it was followed by a number of bold commitment for climate neutrality to 2050, sometimes 2060, sometimes 2070. But anyways, clearly long-term goals and targets are sustainable development and climate action. But when we look at the latest document of the European Council, the strategy for 2024 to 2029, which was just published a few weeks ago, there's zero mention of sustainable development goals. Zero mention of agenda 2030, issues like climate and biodiversity are barely mentioned. So, you know, we used to see Europe as the major leader on this agenda, the SDGs, climate action agenda 2030, and we've seen over the past couple of years, the narrative shifting quite drastically, which is again a great pity because this is a moment where we need European leadership on diplomacy, peace, but also on climate and sustainable development, and explicitly on the financing aspect, perhaps for an error. Yes, it's interesting. I mean, many people still look to Europe as a leader in that, and as you say also in East Asia, there's a lot of movement, although it's hard for some people to get their mind around that because of the ideological divide, but I'm still very hopeful, and of course, supportive of Europe. So, how do we see beyond this? You identify that there is an issue of timing, of presenting the election, so it's an element of statecraft, but, you know, you point to there being perhaps a failure of certain economic policies. So, how do we design economic policies that are more inclusive and promote that sustainable growth in a way that politicians can sell, you know, would come election time? Right, right. So, yeah, don't give me wrong. When we look at the sustainable development report, the top 20 countries on sustainable development, 19 out of 20, are from the European Union, right? So, the point here is, you know, it's two things. One is to look at the current situation, and another one is to look at the trend over time, and I think what we see when we do, especially the European version of this report, and the implementation of those 17 goals, we see lack of progress, or even reversal in progress in certain targets, and especially on some of the social targets. So, the European Green Deal was adopted with strong commitment on climate. I think a number of institutions, including, by the way, partners at the European Economic and Social Committee, have been calling for a long time for a European Green and Social Deal, right? I mean, we've seen it. When you don't deal with both issues, together, you can end up with things like the jig-a-joom, or the yellow vest in France. So, in fact, we released last January, a statement cosigned by 200 lead scientist practitioners, where we call for a new European Deal for the future, which would be Green, Social, and International. And that's why, as I said, I think it's a pity that we stop talking about the SDGs, because the SDGs is the common language international. It's the only framework that has been adopted, by 193 UN member states. And so, if the European Council adopts a strategy 24/2029, which doesn't even mention the global agenda that all countries should be working on, it's not the right signal that this is ending to the rest of the world. The European Union presented last year their first EU voluntary review to the United Nations. Each year, Eurostat, so the statistical agency of Europe tracks the performance of Europe. And yes, the issue. So, I think there's a lot of very positive things that have been done. Our point here is we'd like this to continue when Europe to raise its level of ambition. And I think because of the current context, especially with the war going on in Ukraine, this has shifted political priorities and narrative quite drastically. And so, in this moment, we try to work with the European leadership and institutions to make sure that those goals in the agenda 2030 remain, because I think this is important for the conversation that Europe is having with the rest of the world, the global south. And to give a few examples, if we see a little bit less momentum around the SDGs in Europe, when we look at the G20 declaration of India last September, the SDGs are mentioned many, many times. And as I said, we have countries that are actually adopting sovereign investment instruments around SDGs, like Benin, like Uzbekistan, for instance, are really using this agenda and taking it seriously. And so, I think it's in the interest of Europe to continue to use the SDGs, talk about the SDGs, and use this as a common language with the rest of the world, including the global south. Finland is at the top, this year of the ranking, there's probably something good with the model of social democracy and mixed market economy, at least I believe. And at the same time, I think governance system are also the fruit of geography, history, culture, you know. And so, there are different governance models around the world. And just to help us understand the methodologies behind the UN SDG report and index, I think it's helpful to know that bit of context behind its creation. And then also, you know, today we're drowning in so much data. So, how do you highlight the key points that need immediate decisions and action? And at this DSM, I think we tend to focus on two important documents when we look at those issues. The UN Charter from 1945 that defines the key principles for the United Nations, including the need to act peacefully with other countries and collaborate on social and economic issues, and the universal declaration of human rights, which was actually adopted here in Paris, 1948 at the Palais-Shayu in the 16th hour of the small end. Perhaps we should add to this the Stockholm declaration of 1972, which was the first UN meeting on the human environment, the first ever meeting on the United Nations, because the declaration of human rights is allowed around education, the rule of law, health, and so on. To some extent, we can argue that the SDGs are our generation's attempt to respect what was agreed back in 1948, where at the time already, education, health, living, and decent life was a right. All of this was written already in 1948. Even in 1972, the declaration from Stockholm, everything is in there around long-term planning to address the climate and environment of the crisis. So, when we look at which countries are progressing faster to implement the UN Charter and universal declaration of human rights, we see that there are countries with different governance model, for instance, China, that went from 75% of the poverty rate back in the 1980 to now less than 1%, which is just absolutely remarkable. You know, if we wanted it to participate in society, they need to be out of extreme poverty. So, at this DSM, what we care about is our country's willing or not to advance towards sustainable development, towards the SDGs, and this is where we actually want to support those countries and those governments with our tools, with local networks, so that governments get the support that they need in terms of monitoring systems, the planning scenarios, and in general, support from scientific advice in the community. No matter the governance system in place. My name is Nadia, and I'm a student studying in Northwestern University's specialized media campus in Qatar. Prior to this though, I was a student studying in a boarding school in Armenia under the United World College movement. The UWC movement was founded by German educator Kurt Han in the 1960s to bridge capital divides after World War II and the Cold War. In general, fortune was a conversation regarding the SDGs, especially when he stressed the importance of global cooperation and peace as this free requisite before we can even do anything regarding sustainable development and fulfilling these SDGs goes. I fought back to my experience in UWC, where I studied and lived with students all over the world under these UWC values including sustainability, diversity, and peace. It was like a miniature globe where every global issue was felt deeply and personally by the community, because even though we were all from very different backgrounds in UWC, we were one community, and I truly believe this is the perspective we all need to start opening ourselves to. In a time where 14.5% of the world's surface had a record high June temperature, exceeding the previous true record set last year by 7.4%, we really need to start working towards saving our planet together as one. Like Lefortune says, the global GDP is 100 trillion USD a year. We have the money to channel towards investing into sustainable development. We have the resources we just need the global cooperation. It's very disappointing to hear from the fortune that even though Europe has continued to make efforts towards SDGs, the latest documents published by the European Council had several mentions of the SDGs. The SDGs have always been something that I was very luckily taught about at school, since I was really young. It really is the common language internationally like Lefortune puts it. Additionally, knowing that a lot of countries are becoming more conservative, worries me since, well, not all of them but a lot of conservatives are usually climate change deniers or climate change skeptics. I think during these times where climate issues are becoming so much more apparent to everyone, where there's so much conflict and war on the nails, and to top it off its election year all around the world. Even with all of this, it's important to remain hopeful. Later on in the interview, Lefortune talks about examples in the past where global cooperation was successful thanks to leaders who stood up to choose peace over conflict. It's not impossible for these goals to be met. In times a lot of people today are waking up to the urgency regarding our climate and the detrimental impact of military spending on the economy, the environment, and consequences we live in quality. With the summit of the future coming up in September and the French Olympics, I can only hope we seek global unity, more emphasis on peace, and the return to the SDGs. Now back to the interview. One thing I'd like to talk about is the breaks, the breaks plus, these days are progressing quite fast. And I would say priority kinds to investment in progress, they need restructure, but also education, building skills, and so on. I think in the data that's what we see. The other thing that we've been trying to track this year, especially in the context of the summit of the future, is if we think that global multilateralism based on the UN system is important, whether it's the reform of the global financial architecture, whether it's in general global cooperation on social economic issues, then we ask ourselves the question, well, which are the countries that promote the most UN-based multilateralism? And we thought that the timing was actually good, because there's this important summit of the future, coming up in September, 2024. So we looked at this by focusing on six indicators. One is which countries ratify most of the major UN treaties? And by major UN treaties, we are thinking about treaties that have been ratified by more than 50% of the global community. Which countries tended to vote alongside the rest of the majority vote at the UN general assembly? So we looked, especially over the past five years, at one in 480 recorded votes at the UN general assembly. We also looked at the participation in the membership in UN organizations. We've looked at which countries promote peace and demilitarization, and there's fantastic work done by the Institute for Economics and Peace on this issue with great data. We've looked at the adoption of unilateral coercive measures, which are forbidden in the UN system. Those are measures adopted unilaterally by countries against other UN member states, without the backing of the UN Security Council. And we've also looked at which countries tend to pay their dues on time, some findings of the UN system, and also achieved their targets on official development assistance in international solidarity. And so we compiled those different metrics and made this available in our report, but also online. But the results I think are quite interesting. What, in my mind, was very striking, is that when we looked at 193 UN member states, the median score on this index goes from zero, very low support for UN-based multiracism, to 100 high support for UN-based multiracism. The median score is 70. So the way I'm going to print this is that, despite the fact that we talk a lot about the crises of multilateralism, and fragmented multiracism, there's actually a majority of countries that want this UN system to work, that do ratify the major UN treaties, that do participate in UN organizations, that do not threat their neighbors through military reaction or sanctions. And so it's interesting that in your multilateral rankings, Barbados came first in rankings, and perhaps not surprising, the United States came last. Yeah, Barbados came first in this ranking. And I think in general, some of the Latin American, Caribbean countries, some Asian countries, while some African countries in India, and some of the Tunisia perform relatively well on this index. It's interesting that Barbados came first on the drink, the leadership of Prime Minister Motley, especially on the global financial architecture and other issues. At the bottom of the ranking, we find the United States, which is the last country in the ranking. And very close to this, we find countries like Israel, the Russian Federation, Iran, and North Korea. I think it's quite striking to see that the United States is last in this ranking. But essentially, what we've seen over the past five years, is the United States votes with the international majority, in less than 25% of the time at the UN General Assembly. This is extremely low when we compare the countries like China or Brazil, which is 75% plus. The US ratified less than 60% of the major UN treaties. There's nine major UN human rights treaties. The US ratified three out of nine of those treaties, which is extremely low compared with the rest of the global community. And it's a complete outlier when it comes to the use of unilateral coercive measures, which have sharply accelerated since basically the 1990s. So basically, what we've seen is that those countries that tend to promote the so-called rule-based international order, we see that this is not necessarily conducive to UN-based multilateralism under the UN Charter. And one of the recommendations that we're making in this opening statement of the Sustainable Development Report this year, which again was endorsed by 100 scientists from all over the world, is to say we need to continue to track this more carefully, right? If we think that global problems require global solutions, then we do need to track the level of engagement of countries on a systematic basis. You know, moving beyond global conflict and corruption, still remaining issues, what do you feel are the most pressing needs for building these stronger institutions and justice systems worldwide? I think, again, we're looking for solutions, and that's why we're always trying to have hope. And what I think gives me hope is the fact that when this agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals were adopted back in 2015, there was this agreement that 40 countries each year would go in front of the international community and present so-called voluntary national review. And now in 2024, basically 180 out of 193 countries have done this. In fact, it could be that by now it's actually 190 because Yemen and South Sudan were on the list to present at the high-level political forum, which is taking place right now in New York. So there's only three countries that haven't done their homework and haven't engaged with what had been agreed in 2015 around the voluntary national review process, and two of them are indeed political and social crises. Those are Haiti and Myanmar. I think this one is the United States of America. So how do you overcome that? I mean, because they're very stubborn and evidently don't have much sense of shame regarding this. And I don't know how they'll change depending on the outcome of the elections, we're possibly heading into another Trump presidency. When we saw other results from our work, what we're capturing is really the support for UN-based multilateralism from the federal national level, but also perhaps from the elite. And this may or may not reflect the support for the Sustainable Development Goals and UN-based multilateralism that we see in civil society and among population. The United States never presented the voluntary national review. Having said that, the United States is one of the country where local authorities and regional authorities have presented the most so-called voluntary local reviews. So those are the same as the voluntary national review process before local and regional authorities presenting action plan for sustainable development and so on. And New York was among the first one to present its Vienna. I've also seen some opinion polls that show that the US population is not completely an outlier when it comes to the support for global cooperation and partnerships with the rest of the world. So my point is I'm not certain that what we capture with our index corresponds to what people want, in fact. They don't want to be told. They don't want to be subject. Right. And I think what is interesting also is to see that whether it was during Trump's presidency or Biden's presidency, we haven't seen a clear difference in the willingness to engage with this agenda, including by preparing a voluntary national review. So again, I think this is interesting. We have 190 countries that have done their homework. The United States and America is part of the three countries that haven't done so in the context of agenda 2030 and the SDGs. I don't know if it's surprising, but it's certainly sad and to see also these regard of dismissiveness through the international criminal court in some cases. You mentioned that before we began the podcast about, you know, sustainability is very difficult in times of war. Right. And it's just something that countries or people might put out of their mind because it's just you have focus in chaos and war is just unsustainable in general. And perhaps you could unfold out of it. Yeah, very happy to do so. At SDSN, of course, we care about building long-term capacities in countries for sustainable development, solving the challenges around long-term policies and the financing issues. And I think none of this is impossible. All of this is achievable in principle. And we wrote in 2020 speak truths to power about the SDGs, where we try to put forward that there was no financial or technical impossibility in achieving those goals. The problem is you cannot achieve sustainable development in the middle of raging wars. For three reasons. First of all, because there's direct, negative humanitarian impacts, catastrophic impact on many of those goals, of course, decent lives, poverty, mortality rate and so on. So there's a direct impact on those goals. Second of all, there's also some major spillover effects from war, right? We saw it when the Ukraine war started with issues around access to fertilizers, access to grain, which led to rising food prices and even rises of undernourishment in a number of countries. So it's not only the countries that are part of the war that are being impacted, but the rest of the world also suffers from it. And thirdly, it's a major distraction for advancing towards sustainable development. I mentioned this document, the Strategic Priority from the European Council 2024-2029. This is very much oriented towards security issues, military issues, strategic independence issues, far less about long-term goals and objectives. So for those three reasons, peace is an absolute prerequisite to advance the Warsaw goal. And by shifting priorities, I can give a very specific example, because policies are defined also when you look at budgets. We've looked this year again in the Sustainable Development Report, and it was interesting because in April, two data sets were updated at the same time. The data sets from the OECD on official development and the data sets from Sikri, which is based in Sweden, around military expenditure. And we did a little exercise, which was to compare, over the period 2015 to 2023, are the member countries of the so-called development assistance commit, which is 31 countries, a lot of them from advanced economies. Are we doing a better job at moving towards budget targets for international solidarity or towards prioritization? And so just to give you a sense, if we exclude from official development assistance, the so-called in-donor refugee costs, which are essentially expenditure, which are accounted as part of official development assistance, but spent in the donor country to welcome refugees. If we exclude those costs, overall, official development assistance from all those countries is 180 million USD per year. Military expenditure for those 31 countries is 1.4 trillion. Okay, so first of all, we spent far on our military and international sovereignty, which I think is not surprising. But what surprises me is, in 2015, when we adopted this agenda, advanced economies recommitted to achieving their target on official development assistance, which is to spend 0.7% of their gross national income on official development assistance. So we committed to this in 2015, so we lot to retire. And again, and at the same time, we have a NATO target since 2014 that calls NATO members to spend 2% of their GDP on military expenditure. And what we've seen between 2015 and 2023, looking at those 31 that members, again, excluding the European Union, just looking at national countries, the number of countries that achieved their targets on ODA, excluding in donor refugee costs, went from 4 to 3 out of those 31 countries. The number of countries that have achieved their target on military expenditure went from 6 and 2015 to 11 in 2023. So almost double during that period. And it's very likely that by next year, much more countries will have achieved their 2% target. And on the flip side, some DAT members have already announced budget cuts on international developments for an affairs, so on, including this country, France. So this is a very clear example of some of the budget trade-offs that we are facing. Again, in a context where we talk about the reform of the global financial architecture and so on, we have a 0.7% GNI target since the 1970s. And we have very few countries that have actually achieved this target. And in fact, there's no progress since 2015 in achieving this target. So that's what I can say about the impact of war on this agenda. It's interesting if you talk about Ukraine having that investment. If we had already made the Marine Clean Energy transition, then we'd have been a very different position. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, when we talk about war, let's not forget that it's not only about the Ukraine war, but it's all the wars because it's of course what's going on in Gaza, what's going on in Sudan, what's going on in Yemen, and other places around the world. So the bottom line is we need negotiated peace as soon as possible. And I don't want to be provocative. But then we can take care of the rest, right? The financing, the long-term pathways and so on. I think those are things that at SDSN, we are working with many partners around the world. I think this is where we can have an impact. But when it comes to negotiating peace, we need just essentially good diplomacy these days. Yeah, when this is broached as diplomacy first, and it has the war first, and then make our way back to diplomacy, which we should have started a few years ago. You mentioned that people are seeing it perhaps betraying our ideals, whereas it's just smart, I think. Right. And I think you've done other podcasts also with people that have much more insider knowledge around this. But you know, I've been very much involved also in our work at SDSN around the lands at COVID-19 Commission. And at the time, our mantra was to say, well, you know, good public health policy is good public economics. Because we have to solve this COVID-19 crisis. Everywhere this pandemic, if you want to move forward in terms of economic growth, in terms of progress on sustainable development. I mean, we have the same narrative at the time, saying that you cannot make progress on the SDGs in the middle of arranging pandemic. So public health is the key. Right now, the key is ambitious, innovative diplomacy. You know, and this is good public economics. But this is also the prerequisite for making progress on the SDGs. So in a way, good diplomacy comes good public economics. And indeed, I think you're very right. I mean, in that sense, that I'm just surprising the context of Ukraine, that when we see some attempts to advance some of the diplomatic talks and move towards negotiated peace among the various parties that are involved with it. Yeah. Russia, Ukraine, China, the US, the European Union, we've seen attempts by Turkey in March 2022. And I'm not saying that everything is always perfect, but at least an attempt to talk with the other parties. And we've seen Hungary currently has the presidency of the European Council. And we've seen Prime Minister Victor Orban trying to at least build bridges and collect information from all the major parties that are involved. But indeed, as you said, I think when we see those attempts, sometimes it's perceived as betraying the purpose and objectives of the European Union, which I think is as very much a pity, as if the only solution is military escalation. Yes. So given that international cooperation has seen mixed results, how do you feel we can enhance global partnerships and collective action to address these geopolitical tensions effectively? So on this, I tend to agree with our former prime minister here in France that wrote a great piece last month in the Moon diplomatic, which was titled on the translation in English with the war is not the shortest pathway to peace. And former prime minister, Davinita Vilpan, also spoke very eloquently back in 2003 at the United Nations and made that famous speech and refused that France would join the United States as part of the Iraq war. My hope is that you will see some leaders rise up. This is, I believe, a very crucial but also a very dangerous moment that we are facing. And I hope we will see some leaders emerge to be forces for peace in the same way back in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. We had John Kennedy and Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev that managed to work together to solve that crisis. But it's not only about humanitarian escalation. The former minister of foreign affairs, the Roman German passed away last week. And it's actually interesting to see that him and Mite Ho in 1986, in a context where the US were pushing France to bomb cadet fees in Libya, actually stood up and refused that US airplanes would fly on top of France in French soil and were in favor of a diplomatic and negotiated solutions with Wal-Makadephi at the time in Libya. I mentioned already the speech from the Mite de vidpan back in 2003, which was also a brave and courageous position, also in favor, I believe, of peace. And to talk about Canada a little bit, for instance, Lester Pete Pearson, who was our former prime minister, a diplomat that in 1956, Suez Canal crisis, major tension rising between Egypt on one side of France, the UK, Israel, to some extent the US as well. He came up with a proposition at the United Nations, but also negotiated with diplomats to come up with this idea of the UN peacekeeping force, which was the first, actually, the creation of the blue helmets at the time. I'm not saying that was the only lever to bring peace, but contributed to peace. And that leader at that time took a courageous stance on the issue to try to preserve peace and basically limit human casualties and suffering, to go back to what happened in the early 2000s, Prime Minister Jean Cretean. This was a very brave position that Canada took at the time because of their very high link with the United States economically. But Jean Cretean at the time refused, although the US and UK were going to Iraq. Canada said, "We're not going." What I'm trying to say here is, I think we can look throughout history, and that's my hope today, is that some leaders would emerge within innovative, diplomatic solutions for negotiated peace as soon as possible so that we stop the human suffering in Ukraine, in Gaza, in Yemen, in Sudan. And once we stop this, then the rest, we have tools, we have visions, we have programs, we have networks that can really help move towards sustainable development because those goals are not unachievable, but we need this. Yes, and talking about solutions, it's all there. We just need to sort of get out of the way of our human conflict. In order to implement the tools, speaking about solutions, I hear that's coal, oil and gas, at least antiquated technologies will peak and begin to look to kind by the end of the decade. I was just speaking earlier this week with Richard Black of the Clean Energy Think Tank, Enverne, who says that if wind and solar generation continue growing as it is, then in 2026, it would generate around a quarter of the world's electricity. Well, that's fantastic, as you say, like if we can stop the conflict, but we were talking about cities, and as you know, we're living in the century, the city and by 2050, around 75%, the world's population will be living in cities and will be required to accommodate an additional 3.1 billion people. So urbanization is, of course, speeding up in many cities struggle with inadequate housing and pollution with around 8 million people a year dying from air pollution. So when it comes to solutions, housing and energy, transport, climate, food, waste management, heat waves and storm surges, what do you envisage for our cities and the rapid transition and planning and adaptation efforts that need to take place? This is a very good question. The bottom line is when we looked at the data for 2023, there's stellar values from greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel, right? And it's very clear, and this is, of course, the work of Professor Johann Wachstrom on the planetary boundary, is that we need to take decisive action in this decade in order to avoid irreversible environmental living waste. So I did, again, going back to our previous conversation, I think it's such a pity that we're losing so much time that those wars, conflicts, are creating so much distraction because we have serious problems to deal with and a prerequisite to advance on those tissues is indeed for cheap peace. So we have major environmental problems coming up. It's pretty clear that we will miss the 1.5 degree target from the Paris Climate Agreement. Even the 2 degree target will require a lot of decisive action, let's just say it in the next couple of years. So, you know, the bottom line is in what we're pushing for at the ASAN is in order to advance on those transformation, especially the energy system and the renewable energy. I think there's just so much benefit in regional cooperation. You know, just let's just use it as one example of Europe. If we could create an integrated energy grid where we truly benefit from the wind in Northern Europe, the sun in Southern Europe, a mix of hydro and perhaps also some of the nuclear advantages that some countries have, including France, I mean, that would get us a long way and perhaps we should even think beyond the EU and think even about cooperation with the Western Balkans and perhaps even with the MENA region. You know, that's why we insist quite a lot on global cooperation. I think regional cooperation is very important, not only in the European context, but also within the African continent in Latin America, as well in the SAM countries also. I think there's just so much advantage in having regional cooperation. What we do a lot, both at the regional level, but also the national level is to help governments build long-term scenarios, long-term pathways, because if you don't have in your mind an idea about how you will achieve your goals based on models, pathways, investment scenarios, it's actually really hard to achieve those targets. So we've been working on decarbonization pathways initiative. And in fact, here in Paris, there's the Institute of Development on the Johannes de von Eswattamels-Valide, that is doing phenomenal work on this so-called GEDP pathway, so helping national governments build long-term pathways in SDS and has been leading some of this in the past and working, for instance, in the United States around this. So how do we model the economic changes that are needed and the changes to the energy system that are needed? But we also do this for sustainable food and land system because a quarter of global emissions actually come from food and land, from so-called Afurum emissions. And of course, all of this must be backed by the adequate financing that it needed to invest, not only the infrastructure for the renewable energy, but also for connecting the energy grid, but also storage, for instance. There's a number of estimates that curate show, both from the SDSN, but also the OECD, that a large majority of those goals cannot be achieved without the involvement of local and regional authorities. That's actually interesting because we released a report last March with the OECD and the European Committee of Regents and we surveyed more than 240 local and regional leaders. And I was struck by two things in the study. First of all, is a very high percentage of those local and regional leaders are telling us, we do use the SDGs when we think about our local and regional policies. So the momentum is there. The second thing is when we ask them, what is the main dairy for who to achieve those goals? The number one factor is financing. And there's specific financing issues that cities are facing. Some of them cannot generate deficit or debt. Most of them have no access or very limited access to the funding from the multi-ledual development bank, for instance. And my last point is that on the 25th of July, so the day before the opening of the Olympic ceremony, we will actually release that SDSN, the results of about 18 months of work by the SDSN Commission on Urban SDG Financing, this commission was co-chaired by Miri Dalgo here in Paris. Miri Eduardo Deau-Paj, from Maria de Janeiro and her president, Professor Jeffrey Sass, which will make clear recommendations around how to solve this issue, around access to financing for local and regional authorities. And in this context, I think a major ambition for our community is to bring city and regional leaders more and more in those international discussions that are happening around, for instance, the COP discussions, but also the discussions that are happening at the United Nations. We need local and regional leaders to be at the table because they're absolutely crucial to implement this agenda. - Yes, well, that's so illuminating. During these trying times in this decade of transformation, what are some of the things that give you hope and joy? - Well, that's a great question. And I think there's four major points that I'd like to emphasize. First of all, I think those sustainable development goals remain the future that we want, especially the young generation. We see them being increasingly mobilized and engaged on these issues, sometimes choosing their jobs based on the commitment of the companies on some of those objectives. So the SDGs remain very relevant and the young generation want it. The second point is the SDGs are affordable. That's good news. Doesn't mean that there's no financing gap, but there's no impossibility in getting that gap. Again, this is equivalent to perhaps one to 4% of global GDP, perhaps a little bit more, but this is a fraction of global savings. And so there's no impossibility in resolving this issue around financing. And that's why the discussion about the global financial architecture is absolutely key. The third point that I think should give us hope is there's no technical barriers to implementing those goals. We're putting all kids in schools from age four, five to age 15 for achieving universal health coverage, even for most of the renewable energy. Of course, innovation and technological progress can help, but there's no technical impossibility to achieve those goals. And then on the current moment, we have, I believe, a window of opportunity over the next 18 months to make quiet, significant breakthrough on those objectives. There is this UN summit of the future, which is about thinking of a UN system that is fit for purpose. To 2030, I would say even to 2050 and perhaps the end of the century. Let's keep in mind that a lot of the UN system is still based on the consensus that was achieved after World War II, when there were roughly speaking, 51 member states, there are 193 now. And to a large extent, the Bretton Woods institution still work in a similar way as they were set up back in 1945, where, again, there were much fewer countries, but also the issues of climate environment long-term goals was not part of the conversation at the time. So I think this summit is extremely important and that will take place in September 2024. Then we've got, we should call it G21, actually now, because since the India presidency and the September declaration, the African Union is now part of the G20, adding 1.4 billion people to those discussions on global learning and policy, which I think is a great success. But I don't fully understand this. Why do we keep talking about the G20? Because keep in mind that the G20 is 19 countries plus the European Union. So again, we often talk about the relationship with the global side. I think that would be a great signal. I mean, there's currently the Brazilians that the presidency of the G21. Perhaps this would be something that the next South African presidency could formally set up. The move towards covering the G20, G21, with the addition of the African Union. I mean, this is symbolic, but I think this would be sending a strong signal, especially to the African countries and the African Union. We have two presidencies that I believe care around these issues of sustainable development, financing, fairness, and so on. Brazil, followed by South Africa. We have a Cup climate, which will take place in back weather by then this year, but also a Cup 30, which will take place in 2025 in Brazil. Historically, conferences that take place in Brazil tend to lead to actually some major outcomes. Rio 1992, Rio plus 20, in 2012, would actually work with the confidence that gave birth to the SDSN. So I think the Cup 30 in Brazil, in the imbalance when the heart of the Amazon can be a very important moment for advancing on issues around climate, but also the biodiversity and deforestation issues. And then this very important confidence will take place in Spain in 2025 in June, which is the fourth international conference on financing for development. So when we adopted the SDGs back in 2015, the SDGs were adopted, the climate Paris agreement was adopted, we should not forget that at the same year, there was also a bit of a bit of framework for financing for sustainable development that was also adopted. And 10 years later, we will have a very important conference in June, in Madrid, in Spain on financing for sustainable development. And this is why I remain hopeful because we have plenty of occasions in the next 18 months to talk about these issues, negotiate and find major breakthroughs on the policy and financing side. - So drawing away from a moment from your very urgent work at the SDSN. You know, what are your reflections on the beauty and wonder of nature and the kind of world we're leaving for the next generation? - First of all, I was born in Canada, so of course you'd be growing next to plenty of natural resources. Being one of the main characteristics of Canada is the amount of forests, lakes, mountains and the access to nature that you have. So I've been exposed to this and from a very young age, I always have the willingness to preserve the beauty from nature. And I think, especially I think when you have kids, you hope that they will benefit from an environment which is socially, economically, but also environmentally safe and that they will be able to live in peace. Something that worries me over this, I think we are currently in a situation where we're facing very deep, significant dangers even with the rise of tensions between basically nuclear powers. You know, and this has to stop. This has to stop. And again, if we manage to negotiate in peace and avoid this escalation of conflict, I think there's no reason why we cannot make major breakthroughs in this decade and beyond on all of those 17 sustainable development goals. And this would make the life of future generations, including at the personal level of my own kids much better. - It's an important message. And I think it's possible, I've seen the framework to outline. So yes, we have to get out of our own way and just to improvement them. So thank you, Guillaume Lefortune and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network for all the work you do to help and poverty improve human and planetary health and education and reduce inequality, spur economic growth and so much else to create a better tomorrow and safeguard the world for future generations. We all live our own planet, we call home. Thank you for adding your voice to one planet podcast and the creative process. - Thank you so much for the invitation. It was a pleasure to be with you. (gentle music) - One Planet Podcast is supported by the Yamashansky Foundation. This interview was conducted by Mia Fulk with the participation of collaborating universities and students, associate interview producer and associate tech researcher on this episode with Nadia Lam, additional production support by Katie Foster. One Planet Podcast is produced by Mia Fulk. Theme music is written and performed by Juan Sanchez. We hope you've enjoyed this program. If you'd like to get involved in One Planet Podcast and be part of the climate change solution, just drop us a line at team@gornphanapodcast.org. Thank you for listening. (gentle music) You
