November 2014: The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has released the Global Environment Goals (GEG) Live Tracker website to provide information on progress towards achieving internationally-agreed environmental goals and objectives and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The website aims to better inform decision-makers and the public on progress towards the goals and information available for monitoring them.

Users can choose to access information through the GEGs or the SDGs. The website then shows linkages among the goals and targets and data for monitoring them.

For instance, users can search for GEGs related to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and other conventions and major environmental agreements. By clicking on a specific SDG, users can display the existing mechanisms and information available on the goals.

GEG Live also displays information on the following themes: air pollution and air quality; biodiversity; chemicals and waste; climate change; energy; environmental governance; forests; freshwater; land and oceans and seas. Under climate change, for example, the database highlights GEGs from the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and the Cancun Agreements and SDGs 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 as well as 19 variables on a range of issues, including emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, forest average annual change and participation in various treaties.

UNEP’s Environmental Data Explorer serves as the primary source of data and variables for the GEGs Live Tracker. [GEGs Live Tracker]