Liveable cities, yes, sustainable? Not really as we are well short of goals

John Thwaites.

Australia may be home to some of the world’s most liveable cities, but we have a long way to go to meet the world’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Australia ranks 20th in the world – well behind Canada and many European countries but ahead of the United States – according to a new index that compares different nations' performance on the SDGs, which were adopted last September.

Launched at this week’s United Nations SDG talks in New York, the index marks each country’s performance towards the 17 goals. These aim to put the world on a more sustainable economic, social and environmental path, and feature 169 targets to be met over the next 15 years in areas such as health, economic growth and climate action.

The ranking, called the SDG Index and Dashboard and prepared by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the German think tank Bertelsmann Stiftung, ranks countries' performance using a set of 77 indicators.

Read the piece on The Conversation by the chair of Monash Sustainability Institute & ClimateWorks Australia at Monash University, John Thwaites - “Australia ranks 20th on progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.”