CHALLENGES FOR METEOROLOGY IN THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS (2015-2030)

Abstract

In September 2015 the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) accepted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development including 17 Sustainable Development Goals including 169 more detailed targets. These goals spread over all natural, societal and economical aspects of sustainability all over the world. The aim of our study is to specify those goals and detailed targets in which meteorology can and must play an important role. As concerns the complete Goals, this is only “Goal 13. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”. At the level of detailed targets they are many ones in fulfilment of which meteorology should play a role. Having classified the meteorological contributions to the targets, there are four classes defined: air pollution (AP), climate information (CI), climate change (CC) and weather prediction. Altogether 26 targets of 16 Goals are found to be relevant to the meteorological activities. The possible contributions are all explained in the five groups in which the Goals are classified.

Keywords

• sustainable development
• climate change
• extremes
• air pollution