News at a glance: Sustainable Development Goals, CO2 removal, and hominin fossils in space

POLICY Scientists call for revamped Sustainable Development Goals New analyses confirm the world is failing to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, a set of ambitious objectives agreed to in 2015 by the United Nations, and scientists are among those calling for a reboot. The 17 goals include ending poverty and hunger and ensuring sustainable consumption by 2030. To meet them, the agreement includes 169 specific targets, but skeptics have long contended that many are not well defined, measurable, and scientifically rigorous. In an independent analysis the U.N. will publish next week ahead of a meeting it is holding to kick-start action, a panel of scientists found only two of 36 targets examined are on course to be met by 2030 ; 14 may be reached if current efforts are increased. In this week’s issue of Nature , a group of these authors urge the scientific community to help policymakers identify new practical and economical approaches to make progress on all the goals . In a Policy Forum in this week’s issue of Science , a separate group of scientists calls for four reforms to global policy to accelerate the work , such as making some of the targets binding in international treaties. CLIMATE U.S. funds ocean CO 2 removal The U.S. government last week announced its first research grants for soaking up carbon dioxide in the ocean , a ge...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news