By Ellen Wulfhorst
NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Growinginequality and climate change will not only derail progresstowards global sustainability goals but threaten humanexistence, leading scientists said at the United Nations onWednesday.
The world is falling off track on ambitious globaldevelopment goals adopted by U.N. members, a panel of scientistssaid in an independent assessment report released at U.N.headquarters.
Member nations unanimously adopted 17 sustainabledevelopment goals known as SDGs in 2015, setting out awide-ranging "to-do" list tackling conflict, hunger, landdegradation, gender equality and climate change by 2030.
The bleak assessment report was released ahead of asustainable goals summit scheduled at the United Nations forlater this month.
"Overall, the picture is a sobering one," said ShantanuMukherjee, policy chief at the U.N. Department of Economic andSocial Affairs.
"One element of this is increasing inequality .... Anotheris the pace at which nature is being degraded by human activity,whether it is climate change or biodiversity loss."
The independent panel of scientists investigated the waysand systems in which humans and the environment are linked andinteract, said Peter Messerli of the University of Bern,Switzerland, the co-chair of the group of scientists.
"These systems are on a very worrying trajectory,threatening the very existence of humanity," he told reporters."We have not realized the urgency to act now."
Countries must put into practice ways to address vast gapsin wealth distribution and access to economic opportunities andtechnological advances that undermine innovation and economicgrowth, the report said.
"Each country has to decide," Jean-Paul Moatti, chiefexecutive of the French Research Institute for Development andone of the scientists who compiled the report.
"This has to be corrected," he told the Thomson ReutersFoundation.
The report called on nations to focus on food and energyproduction and distribution, consumption and urban growth tofind ways of building sustainable development.
The cost of implementing the global goals has been estimatedat $3 trillion a year.
These are not the first grim predictions made for the fateof the goals.
Earlier reports have said they were threatened by thepersistence of violence, conflict and destabilizing climatechange.
Outside assessments have cited nationalism, protectionismand a need to obtain more funding, ease national debts, boostwages and expand trade.
(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst, Editing by Claire Cozens. Pleasecredit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm ofThomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's andLGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and climatechange. Visit http://news.trust.org)