Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

So call yourself a lobbyist at the UN? Then here is my gift to you a nerd quiz for Christmas. Who will chair the group of 77 in 2014? Who will be have the European Presidency during 2014 (hint two countries)? Who is the President of the UN General Assembly? Which country pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2013? How many governments are members of the Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group? Who was the main government official behind the setting of the Expert Committee on Sustainable Development Finance? Which government official who chaired one of the working groups this year in the UNFCCC used to work on the team editing Outreach? Who is head of the UN Division on Sustainable Development which acts as the secretariat for the SDG OWG? Who is the new Head of the UNCCD? What is the stated position of the UN Secretary General on term limits for UN Under Secretary Generals? Which are the countries whose Ambassadors chair the SDG OWG? Who was the UN Secretary Gene...

Friday February 7, noon, Tellus Institute will host the inaugural meeting of the Sustainable Business Academ y. Speakers will be Eric Hudson, the CEO of Preserve, a dynamic, environmentally-focused lifestyle company; and Halina Brown, Professor of Environmental Science and Policy at Clark University, and a Tellus Associate Fellow. We look forward to an exciting dialogue between a practitioner and an academic. The Sustainable Business Academy aims at bridging a gap between three groups: Businesses, Academics, and Social Innovators from non-profits, government etc.  This gap appears as different languages, different styles of communication, and different outcomes that each group is aiming for with regard to the ‘New Economy.’ The SBA aspires to:  1)      Share knowledge and best practices across these sectors  2)      Draw attention to work being done in terms of education and research, and  3) ...

The Sustainable Development Goals: Why the Nexus approach is vital to the post 2015 Millennium Development Goals  Republished from Global Research Institute blog University of North Carolina The Earth Summit in 1992 was possibly the most successful UN Conference at creating a coherent narrative on what political leaders should address. The conference was one of the results from the 1987 UN Commission on Environment and Development, which attempted determine the best strategies for a blueprint to move us towards a more sustainable way of living up to and into the 21 st  century. The Commission’s Report was the first major document to define sustainable development: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains two key concepts: The concept of “needs,” in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be g...

From ICT Post We have seen a move of leadership to understand from more developed countries to leading developing countries in a number of areas but particularly in the runup for Rio+20. We saw Mexico as well as Indonesia, India, Brazil and Colombia taking leadership and I think that that’s a very good sign. On the implementation it’s really interesting because the 1990′s saw significant commitments made by Governments at the Rio Summit, the Copenhagen Summit, the women’s Beijing conference, the Cairo conference, the conference and the other Summit. By 2000 it was clear governments seemed to be unable to implement across such a wide area and were having significant problems in prioritizing resources to the most important areas. One of the significant results of the Summit in 2000 was that overseas development assistance started to go up again, after a period of 10 years from 1992 to 2000 where we saw no real increase in ODA. The next 10 years saw it double from 60 bil...

Signposts to the 2015 new Development Goals Having just attended the Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group and the consultation with Major Groups held the week before I wanted to share a number of reflections with this blog. Major Group Consultation On Friday November 22 nd what was billed as an “Intersessional Meeting between Major Groups and other stakeholders and the Open Working Group on SDGs” turned out to mostly Major Groups talking to themselves. It was an excellently put together day with four sessions covering: Rights-based SDGs that encompasses all dimensions of Sustainable Development; How the Sustainable Development Goals can eliminate inequalities and poverty; Good governance, enabling environment and institutions at the core of implementing SDGs Designing SDGs that foster human development within planetary boundaries (including climate change and natural resources management). Looking around the room I could see the two Co-chairs of the...