the U.S., state and local governments have been leading the push for progress on environmental SDGs. There have been a number of private sector and city level initiatives related to sustainable development, including the “We Are Still In” campaign, a coalition of mayors, governors, and business leaders committed to meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement. New York City submitted to the High-Level Political Forum the first voluntary local review which details the city’s ambitions for meeting the 2030 agenda. At the national level, the U.S. is addressing SDG 12.3 through a food loss and waste reduction goal of 50% reduction by 2030 (USDA 2019). In October 2018, the federal government also signed into law the Save our Seas Act which reauthorized a national Marine Debris Program and outlined the U.S.’s ambition to address international waste management issues in developing countries (United States Congress 2018).
Flood mitigation in Canada (Government of Alberta 2014).
reported indicators have been updated since 2015. 14 (52%) of the indicators are marked as “under development”, while 6 (22%) are under the status of “exploring data sources.”
The aggregate picture shows room for improvement for North American data reporting, but also the need for a wider scope of global environmental data collection and reporting. Canada is actively expanding its SDGs reporting capacity with the most recent federal budget providing for the establishment of an SDGs Unit to support coordination of SDGs implementation and support for Statistics Canada to expand monitoring and reporting activities related to SDGs implementation. While Canada’s SDGs progress reporting is limited for environmental indicators, the Government of Canada does keep an updated database of environmental indicators (Statistics Canada 2018a) that spans air, water, climate, wildlife/habitat, and socio-economic indicators. These indicators do not specifically report on the UN Environment custodian SDGs, but they do present relevant environmental data and show Canada’s ambition to measure the state of its environment.
Progress and gaps
The lack of official national reporting on SDGs indicators in North America does not imply that there has not been any progress on the environmental dimension of the SDGs. However, it does make it difficult to rigorously assess progress. In
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In Canada, there has been significant progress towards many of the environmental SDG targets. A few examples include: under SDG 6 (Water), the Investing in Canada Plan provides support for infrastructure solutions including treating water and wastewater, managing storm water, and mitigating the impacts of flooding and other risks; under SDG 12 (Sustainable Production and Consumption), the Government of Canada announced the $155-million Clean Growth Program in 2017, the Clean Growth Hub, officially launched in January 2018, and a number of other initiatives (e.g. there are more than 160 regulated and voluntary extended producer responsibility and product stewardship programs in Canada); under SDG 14 (Oceans) and SDG 15 (Land and Biodiversity), Canada launched a $1.5-billion Oceans Protection Plan in 2016 and committed $1.3 billion over 5 years to protect Canada’s Nature Legacy; and under SDG 17 (Partnerships and Means of Implementation), Canada’s international assistance exceeds $5 billion annually. The 2018 federal budget announced an additional $2 billion in new funding for international assistance over 5 years with 50 per cent of Canada’s bilateral international development assistance directed to Sub-Saharan African countries by 2021-2022.
Although there has been progress towards achieving the environmental dimension of development, the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and the rollbacks of many environmental regulations and policies by the current U.S. administration have caused uncertainty about the country’s progress towards environmental SDGs. In the case of Canada, BCCIC estimates that Canada is currently not on track to implement the 2030 Agenda and noted some particular pitfalls in the environmental dimension of development. For example, at the end of 2017, 67 rural and indigenous communities across the country did not have access to clean drinking water, recycling and waste management programs need to be
Measuring Progress Report 2019
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