Posts

Showing posts from September, 2019

Guest Blog: Support youth climate change action

Image
By Mariam Khalil, BA student, HEC - Montreal. “We have been born into this world and we have to live with this crisis, and our children and our grandchildren. We are facing the greatest existential crisis humanity has ever faced. And yet it has been ignored." these are the words of Greta Thunberg, who led today a march, I took part in, in Montreal as part of the global youth mobilisation for climate and for the future of our planet. The climate crisis is an emergency – we want everyone to start acting like it. We demand climate justice for everyone.  Our hotter planet is already hurting millions of people. If we don’t act now to transition fairly and swiftly away from fossil fuels to 100% renewable energy for all, the injustice of the climate crisis will only get worse. We need to act right now to stop burning fossil fuels and ensure a rapid energy revolution with equity, reparations and climate justice at its heart. Therefore, and in the framework of HEC humanitarian we

Guest Blog: 12 Observations following the 2019 UNSG Climate Summit and FfD Summit.

Image
Zaheer Fakir -  written as a global citizen and sustainable development practitioner Disclaimer: These points are merely my observations and in no way whatsoever am I passing any judgment as to whether they are good or bad. Its is for you to draw your own conclusions. My observations are: Taxation, Debt, blended finance, capital markets, Bankers and Capitalist are the c limate change Messiahs. Grant's and Development assistance are becoming threatened and rare species while loans and other non-grant instruments are proliferating at scale. The historical sinners absolve themselves of their original sin and the victims of their actions are being made responsible to share their burden and build their resilience. The notion of vulnerability has been incentivised , so much so that it has become akin to cannibalism in a time of climate finance famine .  The branches and leaves believe they are more vulnerable than their roots because they believe that they are the only on

STRONG Universal Network (SUNx) issues First Annual Climate Friendly Travel Report

Image
"Calls for increased climate crisis response from the travel & tourism Sector" New York/Brussels/Beijing - September 24, 2019:    A l andmark report issued today by  SUN x , in conjunction with the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) on the sidelines of the UN Secretary General’s Climate Action Summit and the parallel WTTC Travel & Tourism Summit, calls for intensified greenhouse gas emission reduction from the tourism industry. The SUN x Climate Friendly Travel Report , analyses the evolving Paris Climate Framework with its hardening 2050 greenhouse gas reduction goals and lower than 1.5 degree temperature increase trajectory. It concludes that: The Climate Crisis is real and existential, stressing that the world is reaching a tipping point. The Travel & Tourism Sector is generally behind the crisis response trend and will fall further behind without urgent industry- and government-committed climate action programs. There is still an o

Guest blog: SDG 5 and the HLPF process - just singing and dancing in circles or actually moving?

Image
Guest blog from Gabriele Köhler, independent researcher, UNRISD senior research associate and board member, Women Engage for a Common Future. The HLPF process has come under critique for being an insiders’ airbrushing exercise. So the question is: what is the normative role and impact of the 2030 Agenda? Is there any real pressure from a UN document which after all is now a few years old now, was elaborated by more progressive governments, does not get ratified in parliaments, and is not binding? Is it all just fancy but futile song and dance? Well, a number of countries have actually used the 2030 Agenda and its more narrow set of SDGs to influence their domestic policy frameworks. One intriguing case in point is Germany – one of the GDP-richest economies in the world and, for this year and next, in a rotating seat at the Security Council, with an internationally-projected   positive image as the country of the Energiewende (energy shift to renewables), and one of the protagon

The ECOSOC President just published the summary of the HLPF…this is the VNR stuff

Image
The ECOSOC President's Summary from the July HLPF can be found here.  This blog focuses on the section on Voluntary National Reports (VNRs). Before listing the summary let me make a few comments. It seems to me that How many countries actually have a sustainable development strategy that has been developed with stakeholders AFTER the agreement on te 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Climate Agreement? No one has put together an analysis of sustainable development strategies and what role they should and are taking. This is important because VNRs should be reporting based on their SD Strategies and MOST countries did not redo their strategies after 2015 and don’t have a coherent one. There are a few I know that do those being Germany and  Colombia. Germany having just completed its independent review under Helen Clark's chairship. Now is the time to look at the framework for reporting and come forward with ideas for improvement. Where the

Book launch: Negotiating at the United Nations: A Practitioner's Guide Tuesday 17 September

Image
MEET THE AUTHORS "Negotiating at the United Nations: A Practitioner's Guide" Prepare for the GA by honing your negotiation skills! Tuesday, 17 September 2019, 1:00 - 2:00 PM United Nations Bookshop, GA Building, Visitors’ Concourse Rebecca E. Webber Gaudiosi Jimena Leiva-Roesch Ye-Min Wu This tool for negotiators at any level will help you explore the dynamics of relationships and alliances, the art of chairing a negotiation, and the importance of balancing power asymmetries among many other practical aspects of negotiation at the UN. The authors also focus on the impact of information technologies and on what it means to be a woman negotiating at the UN. (Routledge) Rebecca E. Webber Gaudiosi represented the United States at the UN from 2006–14, focusing on the environment and sustainable development. Jimena Leiva-Roesch was a Counselor at the Permanent Mission of Guatemala to the UN, from 2009-15. She was the lead negotiator on the SDGs and clim

New film out: Crimes Against The Future

Image
Free Speech TV is Proud to Announce the Network Premiere of Melli Productions’ Crimes Against The Future Crimes Against The Future, a wide-ranging environmental documentary, will have its U.S. national broadcast premiere on Wednesday, September 4th, at 7 p.m. EST, on Free Speech TV. There will also be a global streaming simulcast on www.freespeech.org   Directed and produced by award-winning filmmaker Frank Melli and host Karl Grossman (Environmental Close Up), Crimes Against The Future investigates the environmental and human rights crimes currently being committed, and putting it into perspective for what it means for future generations. “We are proud to be airing this urgent and powerful call to action, produced and hosted by long-time leaders in environmental journalism,” said Ron Williams, Executive Director of Free Speech TV. Ranging from climate change to the dangers of nuclear power, this documentary methodically and expertly defines our moral imperative to respon

Guest blog: Accelerating Impact Requires Trust. Here’s How to Scale It.

Image
Guest blog by  Dominic Wilhelm:  Dominic works with leaders to shape better futures. He has worked with the largest business networks in the world and is currently working on an intuitive to “scale trust, accelerate impact toward 2030” globally. Recent conversations I had with changemakers including UN Ambassador  Marc-Andre Blanchard ,  Minh-Thu Pham ,  Simon Preston  and  Brian Brault  drove home the point that trust is essential for progress toward impact. And by 'impact', we mean those actions that take us closer to better social, environmental and economic futures as captivatingly outlined by the UN's 2030 Agenda; "We are resolved to free the human race from the tyranny of poverty and want and to heal and secure our planet. We are determined to take the bold and transformative steps which are urgently needed to shift the world onto a sustainable and resilient path. As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind."