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030 GLOBAL VOICESTHE GREEN LEAP FORWARDMany, if not all of the superlatives about the success of the Paris climate conference have been printed already: “historic”, “unprecedented”, “a triumph”. They are all on the mark. The Paris Agreement was a once-in-a-lifetime diplomatic accomplishment on a scale and scope we have never before seen. Everybody involved deserves plaudits for their tireless work. As the Secretary General said: “It is a good agreement. You should all be proud.”What is the next step after a good agreement? The answer is good implementation. We are working on a timetable that demands urgent and effective action. Every day we delay in operationalizing impactful initiatives is another day we make the hill harder to climb. The good news is that we are not starting at the bottom. Even decades before Paris, action on climate was taken at a multilateral level, even if inadvertently. The Montreal Protocol, which was established under UNEP, has been the most successful international environmental agreement in history. In tackling the problem of the ozone layer, it prevented the equivalent of 135 billion tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere in the form of chlorofluorocarbons. Further action taken in 2016 to eliminate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), some of which have a warming impact 2,000 times more powerful than CO2, under the Montreal Protocol could accelerate climate action momentum on a parallel track.While much of the work to mitigate climate change began long ago at grassroots levels, policymakers became more engaged in the run-up to COP21. Paris, in addition to being a platform to agree on common goals, was the opportunity to raise the bar on action. We saw this on multiple fronts. Institutional investors who are part of the UNEP-backed Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition pledged to decarbonize over US$600 billion worth of assets. G7 and EU governments pledged more than US$10 billion to the Africa Renewable Energy Initiative, which aims to more than double renewable energy capacity on the continent by 2020. 64 CEOs representing US$1.9 trillion in annual revenue committed to integrate carbon pricing into corporate long-term strategies.The cross-sector and multi-pronged approach to climate action at COP21 was the reflection of another universal agreement by nations of the world mere months before Paris, in New York. The 2030 Agenda, and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), form the basis for development over the coming 15 years and intertwine tightly with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement. Indeed, “Climate Action” – SDG 13 – speaks directly to the efforts needed to make Paris a success.More than siloed objectives, though, the 17 SDGs represent an integrated and universal approach to development. The environment is interwoven throughout the Goals, a reflection of the global recognition that our economies and societies are inseparable from the natural world that underpins them. For UNEP, this is the culmination of over 40 years of arguing that the environment is not an afterthought. It is at the heart of everything.Our work on climate change and the SDGs follows Pictured: Achim SteinerACHIM STEINER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (UNEP)UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL, THE UNITED NATIONS (UN)