With the mid-term review of the SDGs approaching in September 2023, it may aptly be stated that the global development paradigm is at a critical crossroad! This review comes at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis created exogenous shocks for the global economies exposing their vulnerabilities irrespective of their positions in the global development curve, impeding the SDG ambitions.
The force that has emerged as the perennial stressor for the global development ambitions in the forms of the UN SDGs is definitely global warming and climate change. No doubt, Sustainable Development Goals, which have emerged as the cornerstone of global development governance have been impeded by this "global common bad" (as opposed to the good ). The G20 under the Indian presidency adequately appreciates that as can be witnessed from various communiques. All the SDGs need to be achieved while combating forces of global warming and climate change. SDG13 therefore talks of climate action to combat climate change either through mitigation and/or adaptation efforts. Climate change has its ubiquitous impact on all human endeavours thereby affecting SDG achievements.
Given this background, the overarching question is: What should be the development trajectory that needs to be followed by nations of the global south to achieve the avowed development ambitions while combating the forces of global warming and climate change? How would the concerns of distributive justice and "just transition" pan out under the conditions of the polycrisis faced by the planet due to the threats of climate change, the pandemic and the Ukraine crisis, all of which are proving inimical for achievement of the SDGs? This is what the 12th Biennial Conference of INSEE intends to address. The Conference papers are envisaged to address some critical issues that will be of interest to the Quadrilateral 020 Presidencies from the global south that got initiated with Indonesia in 2021-22, moved to India in 2022-23, and are then planned to move to Brazil (2024) and finally to South Africa (2025).
