A new UN report shows the Chinese mainland has met or is close to achieving 60.5% of its 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a major stride in areas like clean energy, forest conservation and public transport.
Titled "Big Earth Data in Support of the SDGs: Special Report for a Decade of the SDGs," the study was compiled by the International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals (CBAS) and over 40 partner institutions. It uses satellite remote sensing, ground observations and global datasets to track progress from 2015 to 2024.
The report highlights that the Chinese mainland has met or neared 141 out of 233 indicators. It leads the world with 39% of global wind power capacity and added 68.2% of new wind and solar installations last year. Meanwhile, forest cover has surpassed 25%, and over 90% of urban residents now access convenient public transport.
All provincial-level governments beat the 2030 deadline by rolling out disaster-reduction strategies ahead of schedule, showcasing how policy support can scale resilience.
But the global picture remains worrying. Of 59 monitored indicators, only 16.9% are on track for 2030. Twenty-seven are moving slowly, five have stalled, and 17 have regressed. Hunger persists in many regions, clean energy finance is declining, and land degradation jumped by 3.38% between 2015 and 2022 an area 2.6 times the size of Indonesia.
Heat-related deaths in major cities of the Global South climbed from 0.29% to 0.36% over the decade, underlining rising health risks as temperatures soar.
With five years left to hit the 2030 milestone, the report urges countries to strengthen data infrastructure, link monitoring to policy simulation, and adopt cross-goal governance for climate, energy transition and ecosystem protection. It also calls for national SDG indicator systems aligned with official statistics and the use of big-data-driven monitoring to guide the post-2030 agenda.
Reference(s):
UN report: China significantly advances Sustainable Development Goals
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