Nexus 2014 Update with Agenda

The summer has been a great time to start filling out what the agenda for the Nexus 2014: Climate-Water-Food-Energy Conference (3-7th March in Chapel Hill North Carolina).

We have our first confirmed speaker the Adnan Amin the Executive Director of the International Renewable Energy Authority (IRENA). For those who do not know Adnan he has made considerable contribution to sustainable development over a career that has seen him direct UNEPs New York operations, head the secretariat for the UN Secretary Generals’ High Level Panel on System Wide Coherence which was one of the most successful Panels of the last two years and head the secretariat for the UN Secretary Generals Chief Executive Board (UN Cabinet).

“In an increasingly resource-constrained world, there is a compelling case for decision makers to consider the interconnections between water, energy, food and climate – the Nexus. The nexus perspective increases the understanding of these interdependencies and enables us to address development, sustainability and security in an informed way. Adopting such an approach can ensure that the needs of future generations are met with minimal strain on the planet’s resources, thus strengthening security and stability globally.

IRENA believes that renewable energy plays a crucial role in addressing the trade-offs between resources to meet increasing demand without compromising sustainability.  This conference provides an opportunity to discuss cross-sectoral approaches for sustainable growth that are now emerging at the forefront of science and policy discussions. The initiative taken by the University of North Carolina Water Institute, building upon the work done by the German government, is commendable and I look forward to speaking at the conference.” Adnan Amin IRENA

The conference has many objectives three of the main ones are:

Input to the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Launch a Nexus Academic and Practitioners Network

Launch a solutions knowledge hub

Following up on the German 2011 Nexus Conference we hope this conference will become an annual one where the Nexus community can come and meet and influence policy, practice and science thinking.

The conference site is here NEXUS CONFERENCE

The main plenaries will be on:

•        The Nexus and the Urban Challenge
•        The Nexus: Climate-Water-Food
•        The Nexus: Climate-Water-Energy
•        The Science of the Nexus
•        The Nexus and Corporate Stewardship
•         Financing the Nexus
•         Climate Change and the Nexus
•          Security and the Nexus

One of the outcomes from the conference will be a co-directors Declaration which will feed into the development of Sustainable Development Goals from a Nexus perspective.

There are at least four layers to the participation in the conference:

1.  Plenaries: This is the political space BIG P – and will in many sessions focus on the 2015 agenda at a broader level.
2. Workshops: These will happen after the relevant to the themes of the plenaries and be informed by them. These are made up of up to 4 paper presentations per workshop based on the abstract topics.
3. Side events: These are self-organized and will be announced for booking in October
4. Nexus dating: This is for projects and will be undertaken over an hour where people can spend 10 minutes with one before being moved on to the next - this worked very well at the first Nexus Conference in 2011. We hope all delegates will take part in it.

As the next months unfold we have some very exciting speaker announcements planned and some key endorsements for the conference. Come March 2014 this is the conference you should be at.

Other things

You might be interested in a few of the blogs I did over the last month.

New Book: From Rio+20 to a New Development Agenda: Building a Bridge to a Sustainable Future manuscript submitted this is a book by Felix Dodds, Jorge Laguna and Liz Thompson – due for publication January 2014 and I list the chapter and sub chapter headings. This will become a book for ever negotiator – stakeholder present and future to read to understand the process better.

Doctor Who: First I would like to congratulate Peter Capaldi for becoming the new Doctor and of course see him only keeping the seat warm for me in the future. I have started writing a ten episode Doctor Who series on my blog so far there have been three episodes I hope to do one a month.

Preparations for 2015: The UN General Assembly in September will be critical to merging the streams of the SDG and MDGs into one process – key dates in September can be found on the blog

Final Note: Last night I went to see the film Jobs which has Ashton Kutcher playing Steve Jobs. I thought he did a great job and though the film only covered the period of upto him returning to Apple it is well worth seeing. I never thought I would be writing this but I do recommend that you watch Ashton on the teen awards what a thoughtful person.