Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Here is an update on the information that is currently available on the SDG Summit, as well as other summits, meetings and events taking place at UNHQ between 17 and 27 September 2019. The SDG Summit website will be regularly updated. The latest information on the SDG Summit can be found here. Important UNGA Dates 2019 17 September   Opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) regular session              N/a 21 September   UN Youth Climate Summit                                                                    ...

Steve Sawyer 1956-2019 Guest Obituary by  Brian Fitzgerald with additions at the end from Felix Dodds Steve Sawyer wanted to write his own obituary, and he would have done a better job of it, but time got away from him. I say he would have done a better job at it because he did a better job than most of us at just about everything he put his hand to. After hours, when he wasn’t a driving force in the global struggle to address the climate emergency, or taking a fledgling organisation called Greenpeace out of its tumultuous adolescence into powerhouse adulthood, he was an outstanding blues guitarist, an enviably precise writer, a proud parent of magically gifted children, a sailor, a science fiction fan, and a connoisseur of wry irony. In his parting instructions, he pointed his wife of more than 30 years, Kelly Rigg, to Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech as a model for his obituary. It’s a short speech in which Lou says almost nothing about the bad break that will shortly take his...

Steven Earl Salmony is a global citizen and psychologist. He founded the AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population in 2001     Homo sapiens is a creature of the earth. Understand that food is the tap root of life for the human species. There may be other factors that help sustain human life, but food is the 'tap root' for the growth of absolute human population numbers, just as is the case with other species of earth. Our problem is a biological one. A positive feedback loop has been established in the food-population rela tionship because natural limiting factors to the unbridled growth of absolute human population numbers have been eliminated by human ingenuity. Human beings are unique creatures of earth. We are exceptional in many wondrous ways, but not in terms of population dynamics. Hence the recent 'bloom' of absolute global human population numbers that are primarily caused by spectacular increases in the food supply which is derived from...

As some of you will know I have a new book out S takeholder Democracy: Represented Democracy in a Time of Fear.    (other contributors to the book were:  Jan-Gustav Strandenaes, Carolina Duque Chopitea, Minu Hemmati, Susanne Salz, Bernd Lakemeier, Laura Schmitz, and Jana Borkenhagen). This article is now on Inter Press Service  News Agency here.   The book’s theory of change is very simple involving stakeholders in the decision making makes better-informed decisions and that those decisions are more likely to be implemented with those stakeholder’s support either singularly or in partnership. The book places Stakeholder Democracy within the spectrum of Representative to Participatory Democracy. It argues that we need to strengthen represented democracy in a time of fear through engaging stakeholders. It recognizes that in many places politicians are no longer believed but they need to make difficult decisions. To help them do this engaging with the ...

Organized by Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future for the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE), co-sponsored by the United Nations Office of Intergovernmental Support and Coordination for Sustainable Development – UNDESA , and in cooperation with the Friends of Governance for Sustainable Development a Pre-HLPF Workshop on 8 July 2019 – UN HQ, New York was held on the theme of National Councils for Sustainable Development and Other Similar Multi-Stakeholder Platforms: Exploring Their Role in Reviewing and Being an Implementation Agent for the 2030 Agenda The workshop aimed to: Initiate a global dialogue to exchange experiences, lessons learned, identify good practice, and reveal gaps in cross-sectoral and cross-governance exchange that could be more effectively addressed by councils and platforms at all levels; and Assess how National Councils for Sustainable Development and other types of multi-stakeholder platforms can help countries and governments deliver ...

Downloadable here. Jackson T 2019: Zero Carbon Sooner—The case for an early zero carbon target for the UK. CUSP Working Paper No 18. Guildford: University of Surrey.  Guest Paper by Professor Tim Jackson  who is Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), and Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey in the UK. He’s served as an advisor on sustainability to numerous commercial, government and intergovernmental organizations. Between 2004 and 2011, Tim was Economics Commissioner on the UK Sustainable Development Commission, where his work culminated in the publication of his controversial book Prosperity without Growth (Routledge 2009/2017). Abstract This briefing paper addresses the question of when the UK should aim for zero (or net zero) carbon emissions. Starting from the global carbon budget which would allow the world an estimated 66% chance of limiting climate warming to 1.5 o C, the paper derives a fa...