My top stories for the year that have been naughty or nice

As Father Christmas starts his travels around the world to deliver his presents I managed to hack the list which you may find interesting

Nice: The co-chairs of the SDG OWG Ambassador Mr. Macharia Kamau Permanent Representative Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya and Mr. Csaba Kőrösi Permanent Representative Permanent Mission of Hungary for achieving shepherding governments and stakeholders to an agreed set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Naughty:  Save the Children Fund Management for awarding its global legacy Award – to a former British Prime Minister Tony Blair,

Nice: while over 200 of Save the Children Funds own staff joined 100,000s of people condemning the decision even as further questions arose over his role in accepting fictitious intelligence promoted by the Bush-Cheney administration to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Naughty: One of our favorite NGOs Greenpeace had some of their campaigners at the climate conference in Peru hoping to make a global impression at the Nazca Lines World Heritage Site.  Unfortunately, they did and the results may be with us for 100s of years. One humorous comment by the Shadow Knows “This is really going to piss off the aliens. Saved the environment, started an intergalactic war. Thanks Greenpeace.” Not sure that the condemnation by Annie Lenox the Greenpeace America Executive Director will do enough to avert that intergalactic war but we can hope.    

Nice:  The UK House of Common Audit Committee under the leadership of Joan Wally telling the UK government to stop lobbying for fewer goals as it would have a negative impact on sustainable development

Naughty: Russia, Canada and the U.S. (the US can’t do this as they have not ratified the treaty so would only be Russia, Denmark and Canada for using clauses of the International Convention on the Law of Sea to assert claims of territorial sovereignty over the potentially oil-rich Arctic seabed. And of course at the last minute Denmark joining that group through access land rights through their Greenland property.

Nice: World Animal Protection’s campaign on antibiotic resistance becoming an issue for the SDG’s

Naughty: The vicious panic and backlash by local politicians and media in tje US over the risk of Ebola - directed at the very medical personnel who had bravely volunteered to fight the epidemic in Africa.

Nice: Thanks to WHO and the medical personnel who all their wonderful work on the Ebola crisis.

Naughty: The failure by the organizers of the Peoples Climate March, in New York  in September, to include any speakers or statements, to call for any specific policies or actions, or to march within even a half  mile of the UN summit which was its proclaimed target.

Nice: But a big thumbs up for the Secretary Generals climate finance team and the announcement of disinvestment from fossil fuels by the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation.

Naughty: Australian PM Tony Abbott's government's attempts  to abolish his country's carbon trading system to deny that the drought and wild sweeping his nation were exacerbated by climate change to keep climate change away from the G20 summit agenda,  to undermine an COP 20 agreement by claiming to want stronger targets, and to send a 'chaperone' to accompany his own foreign minister in Lima because she was feared too sympathetic to supporting effective action.

 Nice: US- China deal on climate change – a game changer

Naughty: The Intergovernment Committee on Sustainable Development Finance refusing to have its meetings open to stakeholders with the result that their report is mostly ignored by governments and stakeholders

Nice: Paula Caballero Gomez of Colombia for the leadership the in putting the SDGs on the table in 2011 and taking us all to a point where they are universally accepted