Any time I see our politicians agreeing to a UN ‘agenda’, I get very suspicious. In this case, Australia has signed up to the UN’s ‘Sustainable Development Goals’, replete with 17 goals and 169 targets. That’s right, 169.

You would think that we would get some detail of what we’ve agreed to. Not so. Instead, Sky News thought it would be better to provide us with a sound bite instead:

Australia is committed to promoting sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, and working with others to build a true global partnership to deliver the 2030 Agenda,’ Ms Bishop said after joining leaders at the United Nations in New York. 

As always with tracking down the substance of UN policy, it’s not straight forward, but I managed to find the 2015 UN Sustainable Development Goals and targets here. If you’re super keen, here’s the related 75 page report, which talks about the previous 8 goals and 21 targets set in 2000.

Here are a couple of my favourites so far:

• Goal 13, Target 4: (CommunismClimate Action):

Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all sources to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation and fully operationalize the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon as possible.

• Goal 17, Targets 2 and 3: (Increase third world debt so that more can be written off):

Mobilize additional financial resources for developing countries from multiple sources.

Assist developing countries in attaining long-term debt sustainability through coordinated policies aimed at fostering debt financing, debt relief and debt restructuring, as appropriate, and address the external debt of highly indebted poor countries to reduce debt distress.

No doubt, you’ll have your own favourites among the remaining 167 targets.

(Picture from Sky News).