Climate change is a global emergency that goes beyond national borders, and it is a critical issue that, without a doubt, requires international cooperation and coordinated solutions at all levels. To tackle climate change and its negative impacts, world leaders at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) in Paris reached a breakthrough on 12 December 2015: the historic Paris Agreement.

“The impacts of weather and climate are most clearly felt during extreme events such as heavy rain and snow, droughts, heatwaves, cold spells, and storms, including tropical storms and cyclones.

Covering more than 70% of the planet, the oceans are arguably Earth’s most powerful resource. According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States, close to six hundred thousand kilometers of coastline edge them, and almost one-third of the world’s population—2.4 billion people—live within 160 kilometers of their shores. On that note, ocean degradation is one of humanity’s most compelling challenges, also addressed in the Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life below Water.

On Thursday, 23 March 2023, the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) co-hosted at UN Headquarters in New York the event ‘Our water world: on the frontlines of water access and governance,’ aimed at addressing key areas through ongoing research projects, presenting policymakers with scientific knowledge to achieve Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation.

Since 2018, the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) and the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) have partnered on the Millennium Fellowship, designed to convene, challenge and celebrate student leadership advancing United Nations goals and principles. The Millennium Fellowship is a semester-long leadership development program to help students curate and implement community-level initiatives to promote sustainability and public service.

The state of Paraíba is located in the Northeast of Brazil, a region where investments in science and technology are scarce, and the infrastructure in education is somehow precarious. Among the five regions of the country, the Northeast has the lowest Human Development Index (HDI): 0.608. Thus, regional inequalities regarding development are enormous. These inequalities, however, are even more significant when considering gender.

In the early morning of 6 February 2023, two earthquakes of magnitudes 7.8 and 7.6 occurred in southern Türkiye.

Heritage and high-profile historical sites worldwide are considered essential values of human civilization. Safeguarding and preserving heritage, in all its manifestations, is not anymore only about bridging the present with the legacies of the past. It is also about building a sustainable and peaceful future for the next generations. Actually, Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities includes a call to “strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage.”

Gender equality has come a long way in the past few years and decades. There are more women with access to education at the tertiary level, more women in senior leadership positions, and women’s rights have developed significantly. But much more is still to be achieved since women continue to face violence and discrimination. On average, women earn lower salaries and have lower levels of access to education compared to men.

Within Sustainable Development Goal 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, a target calls explicitly for protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms. A key element for this is the creation of awareness concerning legislation tied to adequate protection. Indeed, a resolution of the United Nations Human Rights Council considered human rights education and training as “essential to the effective realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”