A 2023 report by the UN Environment Programme, UNEP, examined how the world was progressing towards its environmental goals. Published at the half-way point of the Sustainable Development Goals, it reviewed 92 indicators linked to the environment. The findings were sobering: the planet was falling behind on the environmental targets and looked unlikely to meet the 2030 deadline. Still, the report highlighted encouraging signs, especially in how much information countries were collecting.
Global data availability rose to 59 per cent in 2022, compared with 34 per cent in 2018 and 42 per cent in 2020. Meanwhile, only 38 per cent of the indicators showed genuine environmental improvement, though this marked clear progress from 28 per cent two years earlier. The document also analysed how water-related measures interact with social and economic trends. Finally, it argued that big data and citizen science could help close remaining information gaps.