Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Guest blog: Richard Lee , Global Head of Communications @ Wetlands International Governments meeting at the UN Convention to Combat Desertification conference in Mongolia have decided to postpone negotiations on a decision to tackle drought until the next COP in Egypt in 2028. Wetlands International is alarmed by this failure to make any progress on drought. “Incredibly, governments have failed to agree an approach to tackling drought despite the ever-growing list of drought disasters around the world. Just this year, Europe has suffered a historic drought, while a strengthening El Nino could fuel devastating droughts from southern Africa to Amazonia. We believed that the world’s worsening droughts would force the world’s governments to act. We were wrong. Delaying a decision on drought for at least another two years will cost more than time: communities and economies worldwide will pay the price. This was an opportunity for governments to signal their commitment to combating drought...

Guest blog by Charles McNeill Senior Fellow, Meridian Institute, former Senior Advisor, Forests & Climate, Interfaith Rainforest Initiative, UN I participated in the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP 16 that concluded last week (13 December 2024) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - with more than 20,000 participants from 197 countries -- and the outcomes were both encouraging and deeply sobering. Although I have spent my UN career supporting the implementation of two of the three global Conventions emerging from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit – the ones on Climate Change and Biodiversity – this was the first time I participated in a COP for this ‘third’, and lesser known - but extremely important -- Rio Convention devoted to stopping desertification, land degradation and drought. I now understand much better how absolutely central this ‘Land’ agenda is to global efforts to address the linked crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, migration, and even global...

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...