Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

Photo by IISD/ENB | Mike Muzurakis I had the pleasure of moderating Leadership 3 on    Innovative sustainable business development at a time of rapid technological changes . I was then asked to present the outcome from all the three leadership dialogues. Here is the text i presented to the UNEA-4 plenary. It is a great pleasure for me to delivery to the closing plenary of the fourth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly the key messages that resulted from the Leadership Dialogues. A common tread amongst all the dialogues is that in order to succeed, a substantial shift in sustainable consumption and production patterns needs to occur in all countries, in line with the ambitions and targets of the 2030 Development Agenda. In Leadership Dialogue 1: Environmental challenges related to poverty and natural resources management, including sustainable food systems, food security and halting biodiversity loss: much progress was highlighted both by the inv...

P LASTICS AT UNEA4 The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) and several global environmental instruments have taken an interest in plastic pollution, especially marine plastic litter and microplastics, recognising it as a serious and rapidly growing issue of global concern which requires an urgent and global response. An Ad-Hoc Open-Ended Expert Group (AHOEEG) was created and met twice in 2018, reporting back options for continued work that included calls for a full life-cycle approach to the problem of plastic pollution and solutions for both the prevention and elimination of marine litter. Many aspects of how to strengthen coordination and governance were also discussed, with many countries across all regions calling for a legally binding agreement on marine litter and microplastics. Representatives from members of the #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement and broader civil society have been active through UNEA3, the AHOEEG, and now UNEA4 to start conversations about...