Goal 13: the climate goal that hands its work to another treaty

Most Sustainable Development Goals set out their own program. Goal 13 points somewhere else. Its targets lean on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the treaty process that has run since 1992. When the goals were adopted in 2015, climate negotiations already had machinery of their own, and Goal 13 was written to feed into it.

Five targets

Goal 13 has five targets. The first three are outcomes:

• 13.1 strengthen resilience and the capacity to adapt to climate hazards and natural disasters

• 13.2 build climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning

• 13.3 improve education and awareness on cutting emissions, adapting and early warning

The last two are lettered, which in this framework marks the means of getting the work done. Target 13.a holds developed countries to their commitment to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 for developing countries, and to the Green Climate Fund. Target 13.b asks for climate planning capacity in the least developed countries and small island states, with a focus on women, youth and marginalized communities.

What gets counted

Most of the goal’s eight indicators count whether something exists: a national disaster risk strategy, a report filed under the Paris Agreement, climate change written into what schools teach. One indicator measures the atmosphere, through total greenhouse gas emissions. One measures harm to people, through deaths and people affected by disasters.

That design lets a country score well across most of the goal while its emissions rise. Five of the eight indicators also have an agreed method but no regular data from most countries, so global statements about how well the world is adapting rest on partial coverage.