Achim Steiner will deliver this year’s STEPS Annual Lecture at the University of Sussex, entitled: ‘Doomed to Fail or Bound to Succeed? Sustainable Development and the Green Economy Agenda – Revisited’. Achim Steiner is the incoming head of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). In the past he has been Executive Director of UNEP, and director of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford.
The lecture will be held on the evening of 15 May on the Sussex University campus, and be followed by a drinks reception to which all attending the lecture are welcome. Attendance is free of charge and no registration is necessary.
This lecture is the only part of the STEPS Summer School on Pathways to Sustainability that is open to the public. You can also view materials from past Annual Lectures on the STEPS website.
Summary
The lecture will explore whether the ‘sustainable development’ and ‘green economy’ agendas remain relevant in terms of what happens next. Assessing the seemingly contradictory signals of the past 3 years – from recent multilateral breakthroughs, such as the SDGs/Agenda 2030 or the Paris Agreement on the one hand, to an increasingly negative narrative on their actual impact and implementation and the relevance of multilateralism in global problem-solving on the other – may give rise to a new policy discourse on sustainable development and globalisation.
Inequality and sustainability are at the heart of current critiques of economic policy and globalisation. Can the transition towards an inclusive, green economy succeed in driving the necessary changes required to meet the SDG target or the timelines of the Paris Agreement?
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