Act4Earth Manifesto
As global leaders and stakeholders assembled for the 22nd edition of the World Sustainable Development Summit, it was the planet that took the much-needed centre stage. As we begin heading towards the deep end of the 2030 Agenda, it is now more than ever that the world needs collective visionary leaderships that put forth a collaborative front to act for earth.
In an unwelcome transition from the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution, the post-COVID world has seen itself undergo a poly-crisis, warranting the need to reimagine structures of governance at the international, national, and sub-national levels. The problems that we face today cannot be solved by structures of yesterday. Just like the scale and impacts of the climate crisis are based on geographical and socio-economic contexts, addressing today’s challenges merits looking beyond the conventional approaches towards a regime that encourages polylateralism and poly-centric approaches. Our window to act is shrinking, and it is shrinking fast. As we stand here today on a platform with a legacy of over two decades having served as a means to mobilize opinion-makers for driving ambition and advancing pioneering actions to address vital issues concerning sustainable development and climate change, our message to the world supported by the youth in their Youth Climate Conclave 2023 Pledge is this-
Incremental pledges need to transform into meteoric climate action.
We believe that if enough individuals can be mobilised the opportunity for change is exponential. It is to this end, to nudge action, raise ambition, encourage dialogue, and bring like-minded people together that we have come out with a 10-point Act4Earth Manifesto.
We pledge to Act for Earth by-- Bringing together stakeholders including governments, businesses, civil society, women, and youth for creating a paradigm shift in the process of policy making and visioning for much needed climate action.
- Reorienting anthropocentric worldviews to nature-centric approaches in policy and governance for intergenerational and intragenerational equity for all life on planet Earth.
- Identifying linkages and good practices within and across Sustainable Development Goals.
- Amplifying global south perspectives on important focus areas on global norms around Global Goal on Adaptation, Financing Loss and Damage, Climate Finance, Global Stocktake, and Transparency.
- Developing actionable frameworks on sustainable consumption and lifestyles by promoting science-based actions, deriving inspiration from indigenous communities, driving policy change, reorienting markets, and enabling social innovations.
- Informing and steering deliberations on key areas aimed towards fostering green growth and development to achieve meaningful outcomes in the G20 fora.
- Realising the criticality of the energy trilemma and develop supply and demand solutions using a systems approach.
- Advocating for nature-based solutions through means such as sustainable agricultural practices to ensure food security while simultaneously ensuring climate resilience and ecosystem integrity.
- Fostering integration and mainstreaming of sustainable development through policy innovations such as green budgeting.
- Addressing global commons’ governance gaps by strengthening the climate-ocean interface.