'Goals focus minds': Linda McAvan on Sustainable Development Goals

Parliament will be present at the Sustainable Development Summit to be held in New York. How far, or close, are we in mainstreaming such goals in EU policies?

That's what we need to start doing now. We've now got an agreement already on the Sustainable Development Goals from all world leaders and the next big task is to make sure that we inside the European Union implement them.

A new climate change agreement is sought at the December Paris Climate Conference. How can this be achieved without harming the development prospects of the world's poorest nations?

We know that the world's poorest countries are the ones which contribute the least to climate change and that's why in the climate talks we need to focus on the world's biggest polluters, that's ourselves and the BRIC countries. We can clean up energy. It doesn't have to damage our economic growth.

To what extent have the Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 been achieved?

Many of the goals have been achieved. Every year six million children's lives are now being saved by healthcare measures, the number of malaria deaths has been cut by 58% and the number of HIV deaths has been halved. We see more and more children going to school and in Sub-Saharan Africa 80% of children now go to school. We have seen big changes. We know that having these goals work as they help to focus minds

Next steps
A UN summit on sustainable development will be held in New York on 25-27 September with the aim of adopting the post-2015 development agenda. A delegation of MEPs, including Linda McAvan, will take part in the summit. In December 2015, a summit will be held in Paris, France, in order a agree a new international agreement on how to tackle climate change. This summit is called the 1st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21/CMP11), otherwise known as 'Paris 2015'.