Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

By Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F082403-0007 / Schaack, Lothar / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de,  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=149275840  We have lost a giant in the environment and sustainable development field with Klaus Toepfer (Klaus Töpfer (29 July 1938 – 8 June 2024).  I had the pleasure of working with him first as the Chair of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD). He was its second chair in 1994, the first substantive session of the newly created Commission. One of the successes of the Earth Summit in 1992 had been the creation of a new functioning Commission of the UN Economic and Social Council and in its first ten years was a very effective body. This is in part because of chairs such as Klaus Toepfer. I was at that point a year in from creating Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future (it was called then UNED-UK – the national committee in the UK for UNEP and UNDP).  Klaus was also the German Federal Minister for Regional ...

Photo by IISD/ENB Kiara Worth. This has been a great session on the last 50 years, and I particularly found Achim’s insight something we should all reflect on. My brief comments will focus on three things. First, I would like to pay tribute to Maurice Strong not only as has been said the first director of UNEP but so much of what we do builds on his vision. Without his personal push in 1992 for the Rio Earth Summit there would not be the nine chapters of agenda 21 that gave rights AND responsibilities for the stakeholders we have engaged at UNEA Second, I would like to mention the enormous work of Mostafa Tolba Executive Director for nearly 20 years and whose commitment to building up UNEPs science base and starting to facilitate much of what we now see as the Multilateral Environmental Agreements landscape. Particularly his work around Montreal Protocol. But also, the work on climate change.   It was first mentioned in the Stockholm Conference outcome. Under Mostafa’...

The Way Forward: Beyond Agenda 21 was first published in 1997 and was the second book I edited. This was in 1997 which marked the fifth anniversary of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development - the celebrated ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio de Janeiro which represented the high-water mark of intergovernmental action for sustainable development. It has been just republished as part of Routledge's Libary Editions - this is Volume 3 int he series. The volumes in this set, originally published between 1988 and 1997, draw together research by leading academics in the area of sustainability and provides a rigorous examination of related key issues. The volumes examine environmental policy and plans for a sustainable future. This set will be of particular interest to students of Environmental Studies. Whilst some were tempted to dismiss the Earth Summit as a gesture of concern by the participating governments, the list of resolutions  and conventions which arose from...