Csaba Kőrösi, President of the 77th session of the General Assembly
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Nikkei SDG Festival in New York
(As delivered)
Thank you, professor.
Many, many thanks for your kind introduction.
Could I immediately ask the audience – have you ever heard about the Great Acceleration?
Please raise your hands those who have heard about it.
Because SDGs, as we try to craft together, with Jimenez and many, many others, were a kind of answer, an integrated answer for the Great Acceleration.
And that Great Acceleration was a scientific project, which goes back to the early 2000s, where scientists started measuring with very concrete data how the road has changed in the last 250 years and why.
Including the exponential growth of population on the Earth, exponential growth of economies, the huge growth of the use of resources – natural resources – and their impacts on the planet and on the societies, on the natural environment, depletion of nonrenewable and renewable resources.
And they came to the notion that we have crossed some planetary boundaries in the last 250 years, and particularly in the last 50 years.
And since it is still an accelerating, exponentially accelerating curve, there was a need to figure out where are we going and how are we going to fix the future?
Because otherwise we all go down to dream.
So, when we so all the externalities of our actions, all the impacts of our actions are producing not only wealth, not only economic growth, but a lot of externalities that are about to question us.
And beyond that, socially, we saw a never exploding so quickly inequalities in the societies.
We came to the notion that we have to figure out a different future.
And that different future will have to be quantified, have to be centered around very concrete goals that are interlinked between each other.
So, it was a kind of answer for the Great Acceleration – seeking systemic solutions for interlocking challenges, seeking a balance between economic growth, demographic growth, social and environmental stability, securing institutional, legal and financial backing for all that changes.
And we tried, actually, to combine actions with their social, economic and environmental impact.
So, if we take altogether what were the basic notions of the SDGs, it’s about first and foremost, it’s about development.
Second, it’s about transformation.
So, we decided to change this world.
It sounds very big, sounds very historic.
Yes, it is.
It is nothing short of revolution.
So, the time frame which was given was 15 years – knowing that in 15 years it will not be possible to change the world, but we have to change the direction of our marching, change its speed and change the objectives.
The global vision what we created was a kind of answer for the question: “Where we would like to see ourselves as a human community and this earth – together, with natural resources, social trends, political trends, economies in 15 years’ time?”
And that was organized along 17 sustainable development goals.
But when we created those goals, it was clear that these are global goals.
And no one is going to implement a global goal.
So, all the goals and all the targets had to be translated into national realities – national and local realities – not only in terms of language, but in terms of priorities, traditions, level of developments, capabilities and making them into projects.
And, last but not least, it was a compromise.
Compromise which was scientifically necessary and politically possible at that time.
When we did it, actually, there was a sense in the room that this sense of history.
So, we were somehow feeling that it might have a great impact.
But quite frankly, at that time, even when I gathered down, I did not expect that in two years’ time from then, I will see SDGs and the icons of the SDGs from kindergarten to universities, from banks to large companies, from international organizations…
It was a kind of positive surprise for me.
But still, if we look back halfway through – now, we are seven and a half years in the middle of the design implementation phase.
The results, what we achieved so far are very modest.
We are way off track of where we wanted to be.
Halfway through it means time is up by 50%.
But in terms of implementation, we are in the range between 12% and 19%, depending on the complete targets.
And do we have in all our countries the national plans priorities for implementation?
I don’t think so.
In some countries – in many, many countries, in most of the countries – sustainable development is perceived – still – as something of add on, on the traditional development.
So, we know how traditional development produced the huge externalities that are causing crises today.
And it was still, and it is still, perceived in many countries as sustainable development with a little bit extra money, with a little bit extra projects, just on the top of the traditional development, instead of changing the core activities.
It also goes for the financing.
What we are trying to do in many countries is not changing the whole financing of development, but getting extra finances for extra projects on the top of the traditional financing project.
And it’s also true that it was based on a very solid promise of cooperation in terms of technological, financial, and other type of cooperation.
And those promises were partly met, sometimes not met at all.
And the last but not least, we knew that if we redesign the future with goals, we are going to redesign markets.
That will have an impact in the range of $90 trillion.
So, we accept the notion that we are going to redesign market.
We accept the notion that we all want to have a space under the new sun.
But when it comes to concrete steps ahead, in many occasions, countries and companies are letting others to take risk first.
And, last but not least, our reporting on our activities today is not entirely honest.
Each and every year, like today, we have the so-called High Level Political Forum, which is the time of giving account – what has been achieved, where we are, and what are we going to do in our national capacities.
And if you listen to those national reports, you may have an impression that we are doing quite well.
The environment is almost rosy because we all report on success stories – very, very narrow issues, mostly exposing those where we achieved something, but we very rarely report on the externalities or all those areas where, actually, we are backtracking.
So, it means that there’s a huge discrepancy between what we say, report, and what we see in the world, in the global trends.
And last but not least, really, we change the goals. We change the narrative. We even tried changing sometimes politics.
But have we changed our regulations and laws?
In most cases, we did not.
So, we are having a notion where to go, but we still abide to the regulations what we inherited from ourselves.
In many cases these are contradicting to each other – and here we are.
Therefore, you see a lot of greenwashing or SDG-washing, but still the SDGs are valid, they are the image for the future.
We are convinced, most of us, that it is a good promise for humanity, and we are convinced that there is no better alternative to save humanity.
