Sustainable Development Goals

There are 17 Sustainable Development Goals that were created by the United Nations.

Many years ago, the world was full of nature and animals. It was very undeveloped but the environment was still unaffected. Over the years, the world has developed rapidly in various industries such as technology, transportation and manufacturing. While these developments have brought many advantages to humans, it has caused many negative effects on the environment. Examples of environmental effects that were caused by development include air pollution, deforestation and global warming. The greatest impact of human development would be the use of natural resources in large amounts (Hogan). People have been taking advantage of the abundance of natural resources and taking amounts more than what they are using thus causing a waste of resources. This can be seen in both the big and small actions that humans do. For example, the world throws away one third of the food produced every year (UNEP).

In September 2013, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were developed by the United Nations to act as a plan after 2015 when the Millenium Development Goals are due. There are 17 SDGS that will be applicable by January 2016 and are due by 2030. They were meant to continue the efforts of countries from the MDGs. When the UN developed the SDGs, they took into account the reasons that MDGs were not achieved and made the improvements in the SDGs. (SDKP) From there, they developed the Sustainable Development Goals to become more specific in the goals and targets.

References:

"Food Waste Facts." UNEP. United Nations Environment Programme, n.d. Web. 17 Aug. 2015. <http://www.unep.org/wed/2013/quickfacts/>.

"Open Working Group Proposal for Sustainable Development Goals." Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, n.d. Web. 16 Aug. 2015. <https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgsproposal>.