Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The real fault line in the Lib Dems Well, people say to me with conviction: the Liberal Democrats are hopelessly split – between libertarian free marketeers and socialists. I protest in vain that I've never met either in the party, and I've been a member since 1979. I tell them, that rather against everyone's expectations, the party has been staggeringly united through the trauma of coalition. But it is too late to complain.  The Great Division is now part of political mythology. It is said that a group of 'economic liberals’ – not a term I recognise – gathered around The Orange Book  to wrest the party away from the wispy idealists. It is all so terribly reminiscent of the early 1980s, when a group of worldly and sophisticated social democrats were supposed to have stolen the centre ground of politics from the wispy-bearded idealists in the Liberal Party. These were both supposed to be victories by the realists over the idealists.  But i...

Building Integrated Approaches into the Sustainable Development Goals A Declaration from the Nexus 2014: Water, Food, Climate and Energy Conference in the name of the Co-directors held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, March 5 th to 8 th 2014 Submitted to the UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN General Assembly and the Co-chairs of the Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group on the 26th of March, 2014 Dear Friends and Colleagues, Some 300 delegates from 33 countries representing governments, intergovernmental organizations, academic institutions, companies, environmental and development organizations and other stakeholders met at an internationally supported [1] conference at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from March 5 th to 8 th 2014 to explore how addressing interlinkages and an intersectoral approach can enable stakeholders to further the post-2015 agenda and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals c...

Terry Waghorn , Interviewer I cover the intersection of innovation and sustainability. 3/26/2014 @ 5:24PM Felix Dodds: Rio+20 to a New Development Agenda Author and global sustainable development leader Felix Dodds has been working with sustainable development for more than two decades observing and participating in international development meetings, including the 2012 Rio+20 Conference and the original Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the Conference on Human Settlements in 1996, the Johannesburg Summit in 2000, and the Millennium Development Goal meetings in 2005. His most recent book, From Rio+20 to a New Development Agenda: Building a Bridge to a Sustainable Future, written with Elizabeth Thompson and Jorge Laguna-Celis, provides an insider look at the 2012 conference and how it came about during one of the worst economic crises to date. The book i...

An interview by Bill Miller with Felix Dodds on Climate Change, Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Tony Benn one of the great UK politicians from the left died yesterday and UK politics will be the weaker for it.  Both his grandfathers, John Benn (who founded a publishing company) and  Daniel Holmes , were also Liberal MPs (respectively, for  Tower Hamlets ,  Devonport  and Glasgow Govan ). As someone who grew up in the 1970s with Labour in power and Tony a Minister he was a constant backdrop to my youth. I was inspired at the time by the Liberal Party not Labour who had failed to implement left of center policies – it was the Liberals who had taken much of the space on the left that interested me hence joining the Young Liberals. Tony saw similar problems but his answers were very much more about extending the power of the state over big parts of industry and people’s lives. I saw government as the big enabler the extension of peoples control over the decisions that impact on their lives but there were many times I agreed with Tony. T...

There are 9 days remaining in the Equator Prize 2014 nomination cycle! We thought you might be interested in sharing this announcement with the groups you work with, or possibly nominating some organizations yourself.  Awarded every two years, the Equator Prize recognizes outstanding local sustainable development solutions for people, nature and resilient communities .  The Equator Prize 2014 will honor twenty-five (25) local initiatives working to reduce poverty through the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems.  This cycle of the award has the theme local climate action and special recognition will be awarded in: o    Smallholder agriculture and food security o    Forest management (including REDD+) o    Sustainable land management o    Ecosystem restoration o    Sustainable energy o    Water security o    Disaster risk reduction Nominati...

The second Nexus Conference on Water-Energy-Food and Climate has finished and the Declaration should be finalized by next Wednesday and submitted to the Co-Chairs of the SDG OWG and the President of the UN General Assembly. Highlights of each day can be read at Campus blueprints web site. A great job done by Grace and the team from Campus Blueprint. Videos of the plenary sessions are now up on the Conference web site. Power points to go up very soon. The third Nexus Conference dates have been announced as 15,16,17th of March 2015 in Chapel Hill again at the excellent Friday Conference Center. What has been clear at the conference was a LOT has happened on the Nexus since the German Conference in 2011. This includes work on the ground, in companies, in intergovernmental bodies and in the academic and practitioners area. We will be build on thios for next years conference and we look forward to some announcements very soon on the follow up to the 2014 conference as well as prepa...

Hi all, My name is Gayatri Surendranathan and I am Campus BluePrint's online managing editor. This morning, I attended the Nexus plenary on Food, Water and Climate; you can read a detailed wrap-up of the key points here . Panelists focused on the food and water needs of society today and 50 years down the line, and all of them emphasized cooperation -- cooperation between the public and private sector, the rural and urban communities, and different science disciplines. Tomorrow's the last day of Nexus, but today's the last day of Campus BluePrint coverage of the event. We loved listening to the top environmental minds of the day present their opinions about pressing sustainability issues, and we hope you did too. Have a great weekend, y'all! Gayatri Edit: Check of coverage of Day 4 here

Hello again, It's Grace Tatter from Campus BluePrint. Today, conference attendees learned how businesses and entrepreneurs can contribute, and will be impacted, by the Nexus. Cole Wilhelmi writes about today's opening remarks by Paula Gomez, the  Director of the Directorate for Economic, Social and Environmental Affairs for the government of Colombia. Gomez described Colombia's innovative approaches for encouraging the collaborative interventions the Nexus Conference is based upon. She calls the approaches the "dashboard" approach and the "integrative" approach, and said they've been remarkably successful, although budgetary constraints have limited the government's capacity for change. Read more here . Lindsey Kellogg writes about the first plenary:  “Natural Resource Security for People: Water, Food and Energy," and highlights two basic takeaways. Again, different industries and sectors must collaborate with each other, as well...

Hi all, I'm Grace Tatter, the editor-in-chief of Campus BluePrint, a UNC-Chapel Hill student publication. Our publication will be providing daily wrap-ups and highlights of events at the  Nexus 2014: Water, Food, Climate and Energy Conference. On Wednesday, staff writer Anita Simha attended a side event on the water-food-energy nexus tool. The presentation highlighted the insufficiency of current relationships between the science and policy worlds, a prevalent theme throughout the conference, and offered solution in the form of an analytical tool. To read more, click here . Staff writer Cole Wilhelmi attended a side event hosted by The Water for Food Institute at the University of Nebraska  called  “ Water, Food and Drought: Learning and Action Opportunities for Doing More with Less, " in which experts from    the Stockholm Environment Institute , the University of Nebraska, and the    Global Water Partnership  talked  examined several...

Dear Friends, If you haven’t yet registered for the Nexus Conference-Water-Energy-Food-Climate, it begins on Wednesday so do register online at  nexusconference.web.unc.edu  . The conference is dovetailed into the end of the March session of the Sustainable Development Goals Open Working Group .  This is your chance to leave the snow and cold of New York for the sun and warmth of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Stay afterwards and visit the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro where the 1960s civil rights movement started at the Woolworth Counter that the museum is built around. Or go to a local speak easy in Carrboro or a wild horse safari on the Outer Banks. Thanks to those who contributed to the Declaration, the  second draft of which will be online on Tuesday the 4 th of March. The final version will be on the web site on Monday the 10 th of March. It will be submitted to the SDG OWG and to the UNPGA Office. As you may know we were abl...