The UN has committed to developing a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that will build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which end in 2015, in order to link the eradication of poverty, maternal mortality, and infectious diseases to the protection of the atmosphere, oceans, and land. As one of the scientists spearheading this effort, Johan Rockstroem, stated, “we are now at the point that the stable functioning of Earth systems is a prerequisite for a thriving global society and future development.” The recent drought in Somalia, the rising water levels, the acidification of the ocean, the air pollution in China and the UK, and the deforestation in South America are harbingers of not only environmental, but also socioeconomic, disasters. In order to address broad environmental concerns, a group of international scientists propose six SDGs: ensure thriving lives and livelihoods; sustainable food security; sustainable water security; universal clean energy; healthy and productive ecosystems; and governance for sustainable societies. The classic model of sustainable development since 1987 has focused on economic, social, and environmental factors, but has failed to integrate these three issues to meet the needs of the present while protecting the environment on which the general health and well being of current and future generations depend.

Despite the urgency to address global environmental concerns, some developing countries fear that a new focus on SDGs will divert aid from MDGs that have not yet been achieved and overburden the already sprawling developmental aid agenda. The proponents of the SDGS, however, argue that the SDGs extend many of the targets of the MDGs and work towards more long-term goals. Thus, the SDGs and MDGs do not operate within a different framework, but are intertwined: the SDG on thriving lives and livelihoods, for example, seeks to “end poverty and improve well-being through access to education, employment and information, better health and housing, and reduced inequality,” which is the focus of the MDGs. Although several scientific initiatives, such as the UN Environment Programme, the IHDP, and Future Earth are collaborating to develop the SDGs, it will be difficult to generate the necessary shift in global development agenda from addressing the MDG’s short term goals focusing on the social determinants of health to the SDG’s long term goals emphasizing the broad issues of sustainable development, which will require a multi-sectorial approach and a shift from donor/beneficiary country relationships to meaningful international partnerships that encourage policy coherency and global collaboration.