World economic and social survey 2013 : sustainable development challenges / Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

I. Global trends and challenges to sustainable development post-2015 -- A more challenging context for global development -- Underlying global megatrends -- A more integrated, but multipolar and heterogeneous global economy -- A deeper globalization -- Financial globalization and financialization -- Convergence, but greater vulnerability and heterogeneity in the global economy -- Persistent inequalities -- Demographic changes -- Environmental degradation -- Threats to global ecosystems -- A strong sustainability challenge? -- Sustainable development in a more interdependent world -- Mutually reinforcing trends and challenges -- Strategies for sustainable development -- II. Strategies for development and transformation -- Process tracks of implementation of Agenda 21 and its consequences -- The impasse with regard to climate change mitigation -- Worries regarding poverty eradication and other human development goals.

Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals -- Means of achieving an integrated post-2015 agenda -- Causes of the climate change mitigation impasse -- Causes of human development concerns -- Towards reintegration of human development and environment protection goals -- Strategies for transformation in developed countries -- Role of technology in ensuring sustainability -- Shifts in consumption patterns -- Means of bringing about shifts in consumption patterns -- Environmental accounting -- Shifts in consumption and quality of life -- Shifts in consumption patterns and the implications for employment and income -- Sustainable development strategies in developing countries -- A heterogeneous developing world -- Further progress in achieving the current Millennium Development Goals -- Human development through more equitable distribution post-2015 -- Development in a more environmentally constrained post-2015 world.

The South's initiatives towards sustainable development -- Challenges of financing human and sustainable development -- A new type of global cooperation -- III. Towards sustainable cities -- Introduction -- The city and main urbanization trends -- The scale and scope of urbanization -- Diverse paths and paces of urbanization -- Changing patterns of urban settlements -- Is there a twin path between urbanization and economic growth? -- A framework for sustainable cities -- The challenges associated with building sustainable cities -- Socioeconomic inequalities -- Sprawl and weakened capacities -- Energy access -- Common and differentiated impacts of natural hazards -- Opportunities for building sustainable cities -- An integrated and coordinated approach -- Trade-offs between investments? -- Learning by doing in building sustainable cities -- Act locally with national support and global coordination -- Financing sustainable cities.

The scale and scope of needed finance -- A policy framework for sustainable financing -- Examples of financing strategies -- Annex: Examples of plans and policies for building sustainable cities -- IV. Ensuring food and nutrition security -- Introduction -- Multiple dimensions of malnutrition: undernourishment, micronutrient deficiencies and over-nutrition -- Under-nutrition -- Food insecurity persists -- Impacts of under-nutrition: undernourishment and micronutrient deficiencies -- Over-nutrition -- Obesity on the rise -- Impacts of over-nutrition -- Increasing food availability -- Increasing agricultural productivity -- Extension services -- Increasing investment in R & D -- Sustainable management of natural resources -- Current unsustainable practices -- Improving management of natural resources -- Investments in rural infrastructures -- Improving access to food -- Limited access to food -- Generating income in rural areas.

Improving agricultural income -- Non-farm economy -- Social security and safety nets -- Safety nets in the short term -- Social security in the long term -- A pro-food security international trade system -- The trade system -- Food security stocks and information transparency -- Diets and consumption patterns -- Sustainable diets -- Health and education policies to enhance nutrition security -- Health -- Information campaigns and educational programmes -- Consumption patterns: reducing waste -- Increasing financing for the agricultural sector -- The importance of increasing public investment in agriculture -- Incentives for private investment -- International support for agriculture -- V. The energy transformation challenge -- Introduction -- The evidence for climate change and human-activity generated emissions -- The room for effective action is shrinking -- The many paths to a sustainable energy transformation.

The IPCC special report on renewables (2012) -- United Nations Environment Programme emissions gap report -- OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050 -- Global Energy Assessment -- Sustainable energy with economic and social inclusion -- The challenge of transforming the energy system -- The technology challenge -- The investment challenge -- Implementing sustainable development -- Sustainable development pathways -- The enabling conditions for the transformation of the energy system -- Coherent national policies for sustainable development -- Sustainable energy systems in a global development agenda.

Print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-181).

This volume "contributes to the deliberations on addressing sustainable development challenges with a focus on three important cross-sectoral issues identified for action and follow up at the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development: sustainable cities, food security and energy transformation."--Page four of cover

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