Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

This time a year from now leaders from around the world will convene for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil. Rio+20 in June 2012 will take place 20 years after the groundbreaking 1992 Rio Earth summit – an event that marked a watershed in international collaboration on social and environmental issues. The British government has an international reputation for championing development aid and playing a critical role on climate change . With just a year to go before Rio+20, there is a real opportunity and need for the UK to show similar leadership for sustainable development, and for the prime minister to publicly demonstrate his commitment to ensuring a successful summit. We ask the government to demonstrate leadership towards Rio+20 by, first, pledging that the prime minister will attend. Second, it should appoint an ambassador or envoy on Rio+20 to promote Rio+20 across the government, involve the public and engage in dialogue with other countries. And, finally,

June 5th is World Environment Day . In an article by Juan Somavia and Achim Steiner Heads of the ILO and UNEP respectively on the BBC web site explores the role of the G8, Rio+20 and the role of the green economy. Greenpeace have brought out a challenge for Rio+20 as have Christian Aid and Stakeholder Forum on Monday the 6th. We are one year from Rio+20 and my prediction is that Rio will result in: On Green Economy: 1. A set of principles for the Green Economy; 2. A set of Sustainable Development Goals with particular focus on sustainable development goals under the green sectors - Potentially 5-9 green economy sectors will be addressed. This would include energy, agriculture, urbanization, water, biodiversity. These could then be fed into the MDG Summit in 2015. On Governance 1. In International Environmental Governance: a. WEO: Probably not a WEO – maybe a process of clustering towards a point where governments feel comfortable with a WEO – this could be a