The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will set legally binding targets among nations. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be legally binding and will not replace or hinder the work of the UNFCCC. Rather, the Sustainable Development Goals, like the Millennium Development Goals today, will provide a global, easily understood, normative framework to mobilize all stakeholders in the fight for sustainable development, which must include efforts to curb human-induced climate change. The Sustainable Development Goals should therefore help the public to understand the critical issues, the solutions, and the urgency of changing course. Similar considerations apply to biodiversity, human rights, and other areas where legally binding international conventions have been adopted, but which also need to be addressed by the Sustainable Development Goals. The Sustainable Development Goals need to get to the crux of the matter on climate change: that is, heading off the rapidly growing dangers. Because the science of climate change continues to evolve, it is important to define the related Sustainable Development Goals so that it can evolve with the progress of scientific understanding and reflect new and hopefully stronger commitments made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Today’s consensus on avoiding a 2°C increase in temperature, for example, may not be ambitious enough according to a growing body of scientific evidence. This is especially troubling since the world is far off course from even achieving the 2°C target.