Prioritize goals to help realize change

We traditionally reflect during the end-of-year holidays on the consequences of our past behavior, as well as contemplating the good to achieve in the twelve months ahead. When we set resolutions, we are striving to determine how we can do better in our own lives. Perhaps we could also take the occasion to consider how we might achieve such improvement on a larger scale.

In 2015, the world's leaders attempted to address the major problems facing mankind by establishing the Sustainable Development Goals — a compilation of 169 targets to be hit by 2030. Every admirable pursuit imaginable made the list: eradicating poverty and disease, stopping war and climate change, protecting biodiversity and improving education.

In 2023, we're at the halfway point, given the 2016-2030 time-horizon — but we will be far from halfway towards hitting our putative targets. Given current trends we will achieve them half a century later. What is the primary cause of our failure? Our inability to prioritize. There is little difference between having 169 goals, and having none. We have placed core targets such as the eradication of infant mortality and the provision of basic education on the same footing as well-intentioned but peripheral targets such as boosting recycling and promoting lifestyles in harmony with nature. Trying to do everything at once we risk doing very little at all, as we have for the last seven years.