Economy (UNECE 2016a). In addition, UNECE, OECD, UN Environment, and UNIDO implemented the EU-funded programme “Greening Economies in the Eastern Neighbourhood” (EaP GREEN) in 2013-2017 to assist six countries of the Caucasus and Eastern Europe in their transition to green economies. The Batumi Action for Cleaner Air is a regional initiative supporting countries’ efforts in improving air quality and protecting public health and ecosystems, promoted under the UNECE Air Convention (UNECE 2016b).
According to the GEO6 for the pan-European region, “the pan-European region is a leader in mechanisms for follow-up and review that will become increasingly important with the SDGs and their indicators: peer review such as Environmental Performance Reviews conducted by OECD and UNECE; reports to MEAs; the balance of legislation, executive action, enforcement and judicial review; the independent role of civil society organisations; and the role of the media and public opinion. The pan-European region can continue to be a pioneer in institutional innovation, balancing supra-national coordination and subsidiarity as appropriate, while building regional solidarity and cohesion in implementing the SDGs” (UNEP and UNECE 2016).
North America
The United States (U.S.) and Canada are included in the regional SDGs grouping for Europe and North America thus are included as part of the Scorecard presented under the Europe section of this publication.
Introduction
Canada and the U.S. were supporters of the adoption of the SDGs in 2015 and recognised the need to invest in sustainability. They also acknowledged the potential of the global goals and the supporting architecture (targets, indications, and universal means of implementation) to serve as an effective roadmap for their respective efforts to advance sustainability at home and abroad. The environmental problems of highest priority for the region (e.g. climate change, water security, contaminants of emerging concern and land fragmentation) highlight a new receptivity to systems thinking, issue linkages and a recognition of the need to combine the best traditional policy approaches with reflexive governance approaches (UNEP 2016b).
Regional progress in North America toward the SDGs is not only relevant for Canada and the U.S. domestically but is also crucial for the global achievement of
Sustainable Development Goal
the goals due to the global significance of these two economies as their political, economic, and social choices and interventions can have far-reaching global
environmental impacts. For example, the U.S. is the biggest historic emitter of CO2 and remains one of the largest annual per capita and total emitters in the world— thus, its disproportionate contribution to global emissions impacts international efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change (SDG 13). Coordinated regional action is key for global emissions reductions because even though the U.S.’ total emissions is larger than Canada’s, on a per capita basis these two countries’ emissions are strikingly similar - in 2016, for instance, Canada’s per capital emissions was 18.6 tons of CO2
, while the United States’ was 15.5 tons of CO2
(Janssens-Maenhout et al. 2017). Coordinated regional action in North America is therefore key to global emissions reductions as the region’s disproportionate contribution to global emissions impacts international efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change (SDG 13).
Since the adoption of the SDGs, the U.S. has set in place a digital National Reporting Platform to help identify, monitor and report progress on the SDGs at the indicator level (United States of America [USA] 2019). In addition to the platform a series of tools and guidelines have been developed to assist relevant federal agencies and managers (USA 2019). Similarly, Canada has put in place several processes to advance the implementation of the SDGs – and its commitment to monitor and report against the agreed indicators. Canada is actively expanding its SDGs reporting capacity and in April of 2018, committed $100 million dollars toward SDG implementation including resources to establish a federal unit to support coordination.
Statistical availability and capacity
The U.S. has set in place a national reporting platform to identify and update relevant sustainable development statistics (
sdg.data.gov). However, two-thirds of the proposed indicators require improvements or further exploration of the data. The U.S. has reported on only five (18.5%) of the 26 indicators for which UN Environment is the Custodian Agency. Four of these reported indicators have been updated since the adoption of the SDGs in 2015. Another 14 (52%) of the indicators’ status are marked as “improving measures”, while 8 (30%) are marked as “exploring data”.
The Sustainable Development Goals Data Hub is Canada’s National SDG portal and is maintained by Statistics Canada. Canada has reported on just 7 (30%) of the 27 indicators for which UN Environment is the Custodian Agency. 5 of these
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