Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

T his podcast created by Felix Dodds and Chris Spence the editors of the book  Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy: Profiles in Courage  focuses on the contributions of Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti , the former Brazilian Ambassador to the United Nations, to international sustainable development efforts.  It specifically examines her role in the lead-up to and during the Rio+20 Conferenc e, a United Nations summit held in 2012 to review progress on sustainable development and formulate future plans.  The podcast highlights Viotti's diplomatic skills, her commitment to multilateralism, and her role in advancing critical agreements like the Sustainable Development Goals. The authors present Viotti as an exemplar of a quiet but effective diplomat who prioritizes consensus building and avoids unnecessary conflict, ultimately furthering the cause of sustainable development on a global scale. The authors of the chapter were   Izabella Mônica Vieira Teixeira, André Aranha...

The new United Nations Secretary General António Guterres has had his first key appointments. He has hired Amina Mohammed of Nigeria as the U.N. Deputy Secretary-General. We all know and admire her for her work serving as the Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Post-2015 development planning. She played a critical role with the Ambassador Kamal and Ambassador Donoghue in facilitating the process that culminated in the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015. Since then she has been a  Minister of Environment of Nigeria, from 11 November 2015. As his Chef de Cabinet he has chosen Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti of Brazil. Many of us working in New York will remember her as Ambassador for Brazil from July 2007 to November 2013. She played the critical role in following up President Lula's call for a new Summit on sustainable development made in September 2007. First persuading G77 to support the call in October 2008 and ...