China has published the annual "Big Earth Data in Support of the Sustainable Development Goals" at the 78th UN General Assembly currently taking place in New York. The report highlights China's achievements in reaching its environmental goals for 2030, and addresses the growing global croplands and rising greenhouse gas emissions. Huang Yue has the details.

This year's report zeroes in on 25 targets linked to seven Sustainable Development Goals, including zero hunger, clean water and sanitation, climate action, and life on land.

The research findings show consistent growth in global cropland, mainly in South America and Africa. But with growing populations, there's a downward trend in per capita cropland availability.

The report also indicates that since 2001, the transparency of more than 40 percent of large lakes and reservoirs worldwide has significantly improved.

In terms of climate action, the research shows that global greenhouse gas emissions experienced a temporary decline in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but have been steadily increasing since 2021.

This marks the fifth year that China has published this report, and for the first time, it has managed to assess the progress of all 92 environmental indicators in China from 2010 to 2022.

CHEN YU Assistant Researcher, International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals "We found that over half of the environmental indicators in China have been achieved ahead of schedule for the UN 2030 Agenda. But in some areas, we still need more effort, such as water stress and protecting endangered species."

Big Earth data is a new, data-intensive research method that incorporates spatially referenced big data, including information related to land, oceans, the atmosphere, and human activities.

China's Big Earth Data Science Engineering Program has been selected as a partner for a UN platform for sustainable development.

GUO HUADONG Director-General, International Research Center of Big Data for Sustainable Development Goals "We've built an SDG Big Data Platform, serving a total of 174 countries and regions worldwide with over 1.2 million data downloads so far. And since China has launched the world's first sustainable development science satellite, researchers from over 70 countries have signed up to have access to the data from it."

HUANG YUE Beijing "This year marks the midpoint of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, due to the differences in technological capabilities, there are still gaps for SDG evaluation between different countries and regions. The report can provide scientific data support to these countries and regions and contribute to the achievement of SDGs. HY, CGTN, BJ."