Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Guest blog by Charles McNeill Senior Fellow, Meridian Institute, former Senior Advisor, Forests & Climate, Interfaith Rainforest Initiative, UN I participated in the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP 16 that concluded last week (13 December 2024) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia - with more than 20,000 participants from 197 countries -- and the outcomes were both encouraging and deeply sobering. Although I have spent my UN career supporting the implementation of two of the three global Conventions emerging from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit – the ones on Climate Change and Biodiversity – this was the first time I participated in a COP for this ‘third’, and lesser known - but extremely important -- Rio Convention devoted to stopping desertification, land degradation and drought. I now understand much better how absolutely central this ‘Land’ agenda is to global efforts to address the linked crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, food insecurity, migration, and even global...

 Researchers have sent a l etter to the Parties and Presidents of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, COP29) asking them to initiate processes towards the creation of a much-needed joint policy framework between the CBD and the UNFCCC.  Scientists from #insert your institution# are among the signatories of a letter to the Parties and Presidents of the Conference of the Parties (COP 16) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, COP29) asking them to make high levels of integration between biodiversity and climate change agendas a priority both in the upcoming COP16 and COP29 and in the years to come. The call was signed by over 140 scientists from nearly 50 countries with expertise in climate change and biodiversity, including a previous UNFCCC COP president, Intergovernmental Scie...