Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

How to be a Liberal Minister  Liberal Democrat ministers must now consider life after 2015 and cannot be hidebound by conventional thinking, say Felix Dodds and Simon Titley Labour MP Gerald Kaufman wrote a book based on his experiences in government, called  How to be a Minister . It is a book that all potential ministers should read. Lately it seems that some of our Liberal Democrat ministers might benefit from reading it. With the next general election only eighteen months away – and ‘business as usual’ with the Tories an unlikely outcome – these ministers also need a crib sheet on a set of policy areas that define who we are as Liberals. Coalition partners  – In 2010, the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition not with the party of choice but with the only one that could create a stable government. The political space we as Liberals have sought is not as Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg defined our position in his recent conference speech, when he said: “Now...

I just had a telephone conversation with Jan Piotrowski from SciDev.net. SciDev is an excellent web site that looks at science and science policy interfaces in the area of sustainable development. Jan was calling me for a comment on the paper Anita Nayar and I did for UNEP's Perspective Series on Rio + 20 , which was published on December 24 th . While he was obviously more interested in the science side of the Rio+20 outcomes, it made me think more about the paper that Anita and I had originally written late last  summer and how we had widely consulted with stakeholders on particular sections they had been involved with. If you haven't read the paper I encourage you to read it. If you find yourself enjoying it then I highly recommend reading Only One Earth - The Long Road via Rio to Sustainability which I did with Michael Strauss and Maurice Strong . This book gives you an understanding that these conferences are important but happen within a world lan...

By Felix Dodds and Eela Dubey Staring ·         USA as Ebenezer Scrooge ·         Jeff the Woolly Mammoth as Ghost of Christmas Past ·         Philip the Panda as Ghost of Christmas Present ·         Mother Earth (otherwise known as Ethel) as Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come ·         European Union as Nephew Fred ·         Developing countries as Bob Cratchit ·         LDCs as Tiny Tim As Ebenezer Scrooge had been attending the recent climate change convention meeting in Lima he was an angry 'humbug.' He said to himself, as he worked on adding up the new figures for the USA Co2 emissions that would be caused with the US growth projections, 'It's far too expensive' Bob Cratchit came over ...

Sustainable Development in the twenty first century On the 29th of October i was due to fly to New York and give a speech at a UN Committee Two side event organised by the EU and UN DESA. As all of you will know that was the day that Sandy struck. The 'lost speech' as i now refer to it was on a project that Stakeholder Forum and a number of other organisations had been involved with in the run up to Rio+20. The concept was put together by David LeBlanc of UNDESA and the UN Rio+20 Secretariat. The objective of  ' SustainableDevelopment in the 21st century ' (SD21) was to construct a coherent vision of sustainable development in the 21st century. It took stock of the changes having occurred since the Earth Summit in 1992, and provides a vision and way forward for the international community, national governments and other stakeholders in advancing the sustainable development agenda in an integrated manner .  SD21 had a number of studies that wer...