2015 is an important year where a new development agenda is being shaped to move beyond the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Substantial progress has been made in achieving the MDGs since they were established in 2000. There has been a continuing decline in global poverty, primary school attendance is the highest ever, child mortality has seen a dramatic drop, access to safe drinking water has been significantly expanded and millions of lives have been saved through targeted investments in fighting malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis.

However, with all this progress the MDGs have assisted in ending poverty for some, but not everyone. It is under these circumstances that the United Nations will be defining Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to supersede the MDGs as part of a new global development agenda. These goals will be launched in September 2015 at the Sustainable Development Agenda. A draft outcome document has already been released by the UN which gives a fairly good idea of what these SDGs entail.

The proposed SDGs are indivisible and interlinked. One leads to the other and each other reinforces the next. Bearing these goals in mind, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at COP21 will have a strong framework to work with in regards to establishing a durable and binding legal document with the full participation of its Member States. The unique needs of each country, in particular their developmental state as well as vulnerability to climate-change needs to be taken into account. What is increasingly clear is that climate-change can no longer be ignored and that a clear and committed international approach is required to combat it.

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