Jørgen Pedersen: The Sustainable Development Goals and the role of Norway

Abstract

In 2019, more than half a billion people live in extreme poverty; the planet is threatened by climate change and loss of biodiversity. The ambition with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is to address the most pressing problems the world face today. In this talk, I will present and discuss these goals. I show that the goals are not perfect, but should not be dismissed. A central problem is that there is bound to be conflict between the different goals, exemplified by the conflict between economic growth and sustainability. I argue that Norway has a special responsibility for solving these problems through transformative politics. Finally, I use the SDG index of 2019 and argue that Norway is not doing enough at home or internationally to achieve the goals.