This chapter introduces the reader to the problem of policy prioritisation and why quantitative/computational analytic frameworks are much needed. We explain the various academic- and policy-oriented motivations for developing the Policy Priority Inference research programme. We apply this computational framework in the study of the SDGs and the feasibility of the 2030 Agenda of sustainable development.

This chapter provides a comprehensive framework to understand and quantify structural bottlenecks in a setting of multidimensional sustainable development. First, we formalise the idea of an idiosyncratic bottleneck when thinking in a hypothetical situation where a government has all the necessary resources to guarantee the success of its existing programmes (i.e., the budgetary frontier). Second, we compare the development gaps between the baseline and counterfactual outputs to assess how sensitive are the different indicators when they operate at the budgetary frontier. Third, we combine this information with the historical performance of indicators to develop a methodology that identifies idiosyncratic bottlenecks. Finally, we elaborate on a flagging system to differentiate between idiosyncratic bottlenecks according to the ‘urgency’ to unblock them.

This chapter studies the feasibility of the SDGs to improve our understanding of the empirical link between government expenditure and development outcomes. First, we explain the strategy to produce prospective (counterfactual or otherwise) analyses with the computational model and two metrics to evaluate advances in development gaps. Second, we present simulation results showing the development gaps by 2030 when the historical budget, in real terms, is preserved during the remaining years of the current decade. Third, we conduct sensitivity analyses that involve changes in the overall budget size that modify the value observed at the historical period used for calibration. Fourth, we present some reflections on the results.

This chapter investigates how federal transfers can boost subnational development. We analyse the case of Mexico and its 32 federal states. For this, we assemble a balanced dataset with 103 social, economic, and environmental indicators for each state. First, we study how federal transfers impacted state-level development during the sample period. Second, we analyse how changes in the distribution of transfers across states affect the indicators’ average evolution when attempting to foster all SDGs or each of them. We find that ‘fiscal contributions’ – a particular form of government transfers aimed at equalising regional disparities – exert an average impact on SDGs of around 25%–45%. Likewise, our simulations indicate that it is possible to achieve substantial impact gains when using an ‘optimal fiscal transfer’ to allocate the total federal transfers across SCGs.

This chapter introduces the reader to the public datasets that we employ in most of the applications developed in the book. This information is our main input to provide a worldwide view of the state of sustainable development and how it responds to government expenditure. In light of this global database on development indicators, we also describe the most popular analytic tools and their limitations. Finally, we reflect on the main empirical challenges that researchers face when studying sustainable development with these data and motivate the methodological proposal of the book.

To engage with sustainable development and the SDGs, I present a heuristic framework to explore the underlying aspirations and actions from different perspectives: the worldview framework. In essence, it distinguishes the dimensions of I--local--particular from We--global--universal, and body--material from soul--immaterial. It is a methodology to experiment with, not a (scientific) theory. Its conceptualization is based on a historical analysis of Modernity (previous chapters), on insights from perennial philosophy and on empirical surveys. The four corners of this space are denoted Subjective Materialism (A2), Objective Materialism (A1), Objective Idealism (B1) and Subjective Idealism (B2). I apply it to interpret the roots of Modernity in European history and I offer a tentative social dynamics theory as a broad canvas for exploring sustainable pathways. The centre of this worldview space is the locus of the integral worldview, where dialogue, partnerships and coalitions are the means to overcome the -- often polarized -- differences in values and ideas of the competing worldviews.

We are at war with life. The Earth ecosystem, our common home, is being destroyed by industrial technologies which have led to massive pollution of all ecosystems, greenhouse effect, deforestation, impoverishment of the soil, overexploitation of fresh water, acidification of the ocean. We are now engaged in a sixth mass extinction. It is time to recognise the ongoing ecocide, the destruction of our common home, as a crime. It is also time to relearn to live in harmony with Nature, to recognise its intrinsic value and its right to exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles, in all its life forms. The Rights of Nature allow us to protect the rights of future generations, human and non-human. This chapter presents various new initiatives and legal cases from around the world to that end.

Good health is essential to ensure well-being for individuals, society and nations. However, health is determined by a multitude of factors, and hence achieving the targets set for SDG3 would inevitably require equitable progress in other related SDGs. The health systems in many low-and middle-income countries (L&MICs) have been unable to cope with the needs of the population due to lack of health care workers, financial resources, supplies, monitoring and evaluation. Health systems research can help identify existing gaps and challenges and propose customised solutions based on country needs. A preferred approach to move forward would be an inclusive and multi-sectoral approach with the implementation modalities adapted to the local context. In order to assess the implementation and progress of health-related SDGs targets in L&MICs, a framework comprising of nine domains is proposed which represent political, technical and institutional conditions. A greater political commitment with a focus on reducing inequities and greater accountability would be of paramount importance for any real progress and materialization of SDG targets.

The conclusion summarizes and discusses the principal findings of the book, highlighting the role of temporal coordination dilemmas and Temporal Focal Points in patterns of continuity and change in international institutions. After relating these findings to other theoretical approaches, the chapter discusses the theoretical implications of the analysis contained in this book for the study of change in international institutions. The chapter provides an extended discussion of policy implications, including how international actors can employ the logic of temporal coordination in modernizing global institutions in the current international setting. It concludes with an analysis of the current context in global environmental and sustainable development politics, analyzing progress in combatting global challenges, such as climate change and the loss of biodiversity, and implementing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It argues that the international community has incentives to realize institutional change and that a Temporal Focal Point could soon emerge.

This chapter analyzes United Nations environmental politics from 1993 to 2021, focusing heavily on the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), or the “Johannesburg summit,” and the 2012 “Rio+20” United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD). The chapter examines the institutional ambiguities created by the 1992 Rio “Earth Summit” and international efforts to address them. It analyzes in detail failed institutional bargaining surrounding WSSD and carries the empirical investigation forward to the Rio+20 summit. The second Rio Earth Summit constituted a Temporal Focal Point in the history of United Nations environment governance and precipitated large-scale institutional change. Among the significant institutional changes emerging from the conference were the transformation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the creation of a High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), and the approval of a process for articulating the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the 2030 Agenda. The chapter also provides a brief discussion of more recent UN environmental cooperation, focusing on UNEP, the HLPF, and the SDGs, including progress in combatting climate change and the loss of biodiversity.

BHR is a fast-evolving interdisciplinary field and naturally its focus expands over time and new subdiscussions start to emerge. Such new discussions often appear at the intersection between BHR and other fields. This chapter briefly outlines four selected emerging discussions within the BHR field, namely: the intersection between BHR and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the relevance of climate change for BHR, gender perspectives on BHR, and BHR in post-conflict and transitional justice contexts.

This chapter examines the making of a new sphere for clean energy governance, and takes an intertemporal perspective to identify three distinct stages in its politics. The first stage occurred through transnational network-based initiatives in the 1990s and early 2000s. The second period marked a shift in interest and consensus among powerful actors, resulting in the creation of a new international hierarchy dedicated to renewable energy by the end of 2010. The third stage marked the articulation of norms through the Clean Energy for All framework and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goal 7 on Affordable and Clean Energy. These policy moves demarcated and institutionalized a new, layered, and evolving sphere of governance of networks, hierarchies, and hybrid arrangements. The analysis illuminates how networks linking different governance modalities capture the growing interdependence across issue areas and actors. It also provides evidence of tendencies of hybridization and layering of modes of governances, as networks often engage markets, rely on state agencies for resources, and create pathways to new intergovernmental or hybrid structures. The analysis shows that the pluralization of agency has shaped the networks and market-based mechanisms that gave rise to the sphere of clean energy governance.

This chapter explores the extent to which businesses have assimilated in their practice the internationally recognized standards of responsible business conduct and the SDGs framework in an integrated and mutually reinforcing way in an effort to contribute as partners to the realization of sustainable development. To this end, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) will be under focus for two reasons: first, they are cited in Agenda 2030; second, they constitute the most authoritative source among global standards of expected conduct by businesses to address and prevent the negative implications of their activities on the dignity and welfare of affected individuals and communities. Human rights pertain to all three aspects of development as put forward by the SDGs, whereas the latter are suffused with language that reflects clearly the substance and underlying norms of human rights law. Hence, the interplay between the two regimes, i.e. human rights and development, cannot be refuted. As such, the UNGPs are the predominant, until such time as the proposed Business and Human Rights Treaty is adopted, ‘normative’ roadmap for businesses to achieve the SDGs.

This chapter provides a critical overview of the UNGPs and its three predecessors: the 1990 Draft Code, the Global Compact, and the Draft UN Norms. The current BHR treaty process, which is dealt with elsewhere in this book, is touched upon briefly because of space constraints. In providing an overview of various attempts at the UN level to regulate corporations, two arguments are made in this chapter. First, we should see the UNGPs as part of a continuing process to develop standards at the UN level, rather than as a complete new start. Second, it is argued that the UN has made too little and too slow progress in putting in place an effective regulatory regime. In making such an assessment about the progress made so far in ‘humanizing business’, the author attempts to step in the shoes of rights holders, because progress could be interpreted differently from the perspective of different stakeholders.

Success stories in clean-up of toxic sites. Sydney, Singapore, US Superfund. Key global chemical treaties. New approaches to chemical clean-up. Shortcomings in scientific, medical and chemical training. Curbing the global toxic deluge. Citizen responsibility for a cleaner Planet.