I am a writer, and have been for many years. In my work world, I’ve mostly written for the benefit of others. Recently, research for that work has led me to a close look at the United Nations and its energy and climate policies. I realized that many UN policies and benchmarks include targets for future accomplishments, but trying to ascertain whether or not those targets ever were, or are, being met was not easy. Since I’m now semi-retired, and curious about such things, I’ve decided to try to track down those goals and see if, indeed, they’ve been met, or simply allowed to fall by the wayside.
For instance, in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, all signatory nation states (193 of them) were challenged to update their climate goals every five years, with the first round due in 2020. Obviously, 2020 has come and gone. According to the UN website, only thirteen countries had updated their climate goals by December 2021. Even accounting for the pandemic, that leaves 180 signatories well in arrears. Many other such targets have been established in the energy, climate, health, and clean water sectors. We intend to systematically investigate those we can, and report on where they are today.