Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Milestone achievements for a better world “It was the first time in human history that we as human beings reached consensus on the future of development,” UN DESA’s Under-Secretary-General Wu Hongbo said, commenting on the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in an interview with UN DESA Voice. Mr. Wu shared his views on the many positive results achieved and on the work that now lies ahead. Only a few months have passed since Heads of State and Government representatives of the 193 UN Member States gathered in New York for the UN Summit on Sustainable Development, to adopt the new, transformative and inclusive Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Taken from UNDESA Voice. 

"The world continues to squander trillions on Military spending. Why is it easier to find more to destroy people and planet than it is to it is to protect them ."    UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon  As many of you will have read I've been concerned about the attempt by developed countries led by he USA to not fund/ the implementation of the SDGs and FFD within the work of the UN. In the end Im not absolutely sure what was agreed but the SG indicated that adding resources to development  had been achieved but at the same time as reducing resources to areas including public information, which presented challenges for the United Nations. UNGA President Mr. Lykketoft (Denmark), said 2016 would be about kick-starting implementation of the “incredible breakthroughs” that the Organization had brought about in 2015, namely the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Climate Agreement.  The UN final core budget for the next two years hasn't increased but has been ...

Steve Waygood Chief Responsible Investment Officer, Aviva Investors  UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon borrowed an aphorism attributed to Voltaire when he addressed the closing plenary of COP21: "We must not let the quest for perfection be the enemy of the public good."  He was thanking negotiators for the compromises that they had made in the pursuit of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Ban Ki-moon’s statement could equally apply to any analysis of the agreement itself. The deal marks an extraordinary moment in global history. Left unchecked, climate change would be the greatest market failure of all time, the greatest inequality of all time, and it would represent a social catastrophe. Instead, the unprecedented international accord now has the potential to be a game changer in the fight against climate change. As an insurance company, Aviva is very positive about the newly calibrated political ambition to pursue efforts to limit climate change to 1.5...

Dear Friends I wanted to share with you what I have produced this year and what I already are planning for 2016. This year has been a  very productive year. I have tried to comment on today's challenges and opportunities as well as a political commentry on the sustainable development agenda more generally. Books I enjoy writing and had the opporunity to work with some great people this year. G overnance for Sustainable Development (May 2015) and I had the pleasure in editing it with  S. Luna, H. Lim, O. Rebedea, D. Banisar, and Q. McKew, A  New World Frontiers book . I also wrote two chapters on: Key questions for an interlinked and coherent governance for the review and follow-up of the post 2015 agenda and its SDG and the Addis Ababa commitments, and  Partnerships lessons from the first ten years of Type 2 Partnerships commitments  The Handbook of Water and Health (October 2015) edited by Jamie Bartram. I contributed a chapter:  Inte...

Deutsche Weller radio picked up the story of Santa Claus Takes on Climate Change in  their Living Planet broadcast on the 18th of December. This week, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed the Arctic experienced record air temperatures and a new low in peak ice extent during 2015. Bad news for iconic Arctic resident, Santa Claus. And his reindeer-drawn sleigh may not be as climate-friendly as you think, according to environmentalist Felix Dodds. The podcast can be heard here .   You can support the comic here .  The full Living Planet post Paris programme can be heard here . 

It has been a great year for multilateralism with the agreements in Paris on Climate Change, New York on the SDGs and Addis on the Financing for Developmen t. These don’t happen without a huge effort by lots of people. Of course it is always said that the follow up is the most difficult and we know from the 1992 Earth Summit that this is true. There the very comprehensive Agenda 21 was estimated to cost $625 billion a year to implement with $125 billion from developed to developing countries. ODA was in 1992 $56 billion and instead of increasing to $125 billion it fell by 1997 to $52 billion and only got back to $56 billion by 2002. The 1990s were the lost decade which of course in part has contributed to the challenges we now face. The 2030 Agenda has been costed out by SDSN at $2-$3 billion a year. So funding this new 'global agreement' is critical.  I raised my concern earlier about the budget being discussed in 5th Committee (Biannual regular budget – negotiati...

In relation to the issue of stakeholder modalities for the preparatory process for Habitat III which already has had two prepcoms some people might say at last..... The governments produced in the end a very good resolution which addresses all the issues that were outstanding and did so in a constructive and forward looking way. First on the stakeholder engagement the approach builds on the open way that stakeholders engaged in the 2015 process and not the more restrictive approach that the same governments were looking to introduce in Nairobi at prepcom 2. Individual local authorities as is normal will have to accredit through their associations and this enable the issue of the Falklands to be put to rest as it will be the responsibility of the associations to ensure any one they accredit abides by the rules. There was as i indicated in a  previous posting the recognition that they needed many more days than were allocated in the original motion establishing the prepar...