Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

68 th session of the General Assembly Overview of events with opportunities for civil society participation around its opening week The following events during the High Level Week of the 68th session of the UN General Assembly are intended to substantively contribute to shaping the post-2015 development agenda, including the Sustainable Development Goals. Major groups of Civil society and other stakeholders will have an opportunity to engage in the inter-governmental processes, with limited access, as well as in a series of UN and/or civil society led events that will be open to all NGOs.  Participation details for each of these inter-related events are provided below. In addition, governments and/or civil society are convening side events for which dates and venues will be confirmed by late August. A provisional list of relevant side events can be accessed here:   http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/proposed-side-events-2013-special-event.pdf Friday 20 Septemb...

By Felix Dodds and Eela Dubey Staring ·         USA as Ebenezer Scrooge ·         Jeff the Woolly Mammoth as Ghost of Christmas Past ·         Philip the Panda as Ghost of Christmas Present ·         Mother Earth (otherwise known as Ethel) as Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come ·         European Union as Nephew Fred ·         Developing countries as Bob Cratchit ·         LDCs as Tiny Tim As Ebenezer Scrooge had been attending the recent climate change convention meeting in Lima he was an angry 'humbug.' He said to himself, as he worked on adding up the new figures for the USA Co2 emissions that would be caused with the US growth projections, 'It's far too expensive' Bob Cratchit came over ...

Sustainable Development in the twenty first century On the 29th of October i was due to fly to New York and give a speech at a UN Committee Two side event organised by the EU and UN DESA. As all of you will know that was the day that Sandy struck. The 'lost speech' as i now refer to it was on a project that Stakeholder Forum and a number of other organisations had been involved with in the run up to Rio+20. The concept was put together by David LeBlanc of UNDESA and the UN Rio+20 Secretariat. The objective of  ' SustainableDevelopment in the 21st century ' (SD21) was to construct a coherent vision of sustainable development in the 21st century. It took stock of the changes having occurred since the Earth Summit in 1992, and provides a vision and way forward for the international community, national governments and other stakeholders in advancing the sustainable development agenda in an integrated manner .  SD21 had a number of studies that wer...

VIEWPOINT Felix Dodds and Michael Strauss Environmentalists Felix Dodds and Michael Strauss had this published in an earlier form in the BBC's Green Room (2009). They pass on from a seasonal contributor an important message: "Though he usually prefers to act anonymously, he has been rumored to be active in many different countries under various personae that include Father Christmas, Pere Noel, and San Nicolas." Dear children, As many of you know this time of year is very busy for me. The elves are also really busy, making the Obama dolls (although they appear to be less popular than last year), the train sets, and the computer games. But before I pack up the sleigh and set off on this year's big ride, I wanted to share with you an update on how things are going. I wanted to share with you some worries I have, because here at the North Pole it has been a difficult year. Dancer hurt a leg earlier this year and almost had to be replaced in thi...