Sustainable Development Goal 13

Sustainable Development Goal 13 (SDG 13 or Global Goal 13) is the United Nations Global Goal to limit and adapt to climate change. It is one of 17 Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015. The official mission statement of this goal is to "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts". SDG 13 and SDG 7 on clean energy are closely related and complementary.

SDG 13 has five targets which are to be achieved by 2030. They cover a wide range of issues surrounding climate action. The first three targets are outcome targets. The first target is to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity towards climate change-related disasters. The second target is to integrate climate change measures into policies and planning. The third target is to build knowledge and capacity. The remaining two targets are means of implementation targets. These include implementing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and to promote mechanisms to raise capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management. Along with each target, there are indicators that provide a method to review the overall progress of each target. The UNFCCC is the main intergovernmental forum for negotiating the global response to climate change.

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2°C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) by the end of the century.

As of 2020, many countries are now implementing their national climate change adaptation plans.

SDG 13 intends to take urgent action in order to combat climate change and its impacts. Many climate change impacts are already felt at the current 1.2 °C (2.2 °F) level of warming. Additional warming will increase these impacts and can trigger tipping points, such as the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, nations collectively agreed to keep warming "well under 2 °C". However, with pledges made under the Agreement, global warming would still reach about 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) by the end of the century.

Reducing emissions requires generating electricity from low-carbon sources rather than burning fossil fuels. This change includes phasing out coal and natural gas fired power plants, vastly increasing use of wind, solar, and other types of renewable energy, and reducing energy use.

SDG 13 has five targets. The targets include to strengthening resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related disasters (Target 13.1), integrate climate change measures into policies and planning (Target 13.2), build knowledge and capacity to meet climate change (Target 13.3), implement the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (Target 13.a), and promote mechanisms to raise capacity for planning and management (Target 13.b).

Each target includes one or more indicators that help to measure and monitor the progress. Some of the indicators are number of deaths, missing people and directly affected people attributed to disasters per 100,000 population (13.1.1) or total greenhouse emissions generated by year (13.2.2).