The SGI and the Research Center for Gas Innovation (RCGI) are holding a Triple Helix Series on Sustainable Development Goals. The event will include a special talk from Dr Adam Hawkes, Director of the Sustainable Gas Institute.

The United Nations launched the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Agenda 2030 in September 2015 following the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that were in place from 2000 to 2015.

The Agenda 2030 comprises 17 SDGs that unfold in 169 targets and 330 indicators aiming at a positive impact on people and the planet, building partnerships for their implementation, and leaving no one behind (Sachs, 2012; Sachs et al., 2019, 2020).

The Paris Agreement, also launched in 2015, aims at strengthening the global response towards climate change through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) that were agreed upon by 197 participant countries (United Nations).

Each of these countries has committed to take actions to mitigate global warming to well below 2oC and as closest as possible to 1.5oC (UNFCC, 2015; Leemans and Vellinga, 2017). Both SDGs and NDCs share the view of a climate-safe environment for those in the present era as well as for future generations (Zhenmin and Espinosa, 2019).

The first five years showed that many countries are far back in their efforts towards the goals, meaning that the ten years up to 2030 will require an extra endeavour to achieve the expected levels.

As a way forward in planning and implementing endeavours to attain such results, a group of experts and thinkers come together to share their views about the challenges involved to accomplish the SDGs and NDCs targets.