Climate Action

The problems related to the process of industrialisation such as biodiversity depletion, climate change and a worsening of health and living conditions, especially but not only in developing countries, intensify. Therefore, there is an increasing need to search for integrated solutions to make development more sustainable. The United Nations has acknowledged the problem and approved the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. On 1st January 2016, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda officially came into force. These goals cover the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection.  

The Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals comprehensively addresses the SDGs in an integrated way. It encompasses 17 volumes, each one devoted to one of the 17 SDGs. This volume addresses SDG 13 "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts" and contains the description of a range of terms, which allow a better understanding and foster knowledge. Climate change is a threat to development with unprecedented impacts. Urgent action to combat climate change and development of integrated strategies on climate change mitigation and adaptation and sustainable development are critical for a sustainable future.

Concretely, the defined targets are:

• Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries
• Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning
• Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning
• Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible
• Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing states, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities

• Sustainability
• Nutrition
• Innovation
• Sustainable Development
• Research
• Resilience and Adaptive Capacity
• Climate Change Mitigation, Adaptation, Impact Reduction
• Climate Change Communication

• European School of Sustainability, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

  Walter Leal Filho

• Center for Neuroscience & Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

  Anabela Marisa Azul

• Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo University Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Passo Fundo, Brazil

  Luciana Brandli

• Istinye University, Istanbul, Turkey

  Pinar Gökcin Özuyar

• International Centre for Thriving, University of Chester, CHESTER, United Kingdom

  Tony Wall

Walter Leal Filho (BSc, PhD, DSc, DPhil, DEd, DL, DLitt) is a Senior Professor and Head of the Research and Transfer Centre "Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management” at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany, and Chair of Environment and Technology at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK. He is the initiator of the Word Sustainable Development Symposia (WSSD-U) series, and chairs the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme. Professor Leal Filho has written, co-written, edited or co-edited more than 400 publications, including books, book chapters and papers in refereed journals.