Abstract: Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, Climate Action, is an anomaly among the SDGs. Although combating climate change is critical to achieving the SDGs and vice versa, SDG 13 itself is of relatively little consequence. When the SDGs were developed, it had to be included, given the importance of the climate change issue. But it needed to be a placeholder in order to ensure that it did not interfere with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change negotiations, which were underway concurrently. As a result, the importance of the interlinkages between climate and the SDGs is reflected less in SDG 13 than in non-climate SDGs, including those addressing energy, industry, infrastructure, consumption and production, and cities.
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