Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

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...

Panel I: How Can Rio+20 Foster the Global Development Agenda? Panel II: The Role of the General Assembly in Supporting the Rio+20 Objectives With the much-anticipated United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development just a month away, and with intergovernmental negotiations on an outcome mired in minutiae, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called today for ambitious leadership to seize this “once in a generation opportunity” to transform ideas and aspirations into bold action “for the sake of our planet and our children”. “We do not have a moment to waste”, the Secretary-General said, opening the General Assembly’s informal thematic debate convened to re-energize talks on possible outcomes of the Conference — known as “Rio+20” after the Brazilian city that will host the event from 20 to 23 June.  The debate, “The Road to Rio+20 and Beyond”, featured two round-table discussions dealing with issues at the heart of the Rio process, including ways the ...

Only know less than 11 months until the Rio Earth Summit and so much still to do. Some good developments new Brazlian head of FAO Graziano da Silva. Preparations for the Indonsian high level meeting on sustainable development governance. The first real chance to discuss reform of the UN CSD and national sustainable development governance. The UN DPI NGO  Bonn 3-5th September Sustainable Socieities - Responsive Citizens Confernce will will be the big civil society conference on rio+20 which is looking at sustainable societies at all levels  and will be the main stakeholder meeting prior to the november 1st deadline for contributions to the zero draft. If you are interested in havign an impact this is the event to attend!!!

June 5th is World Environment Day . In an article by Juan Somavia and Achim Steiner Heads of the ILO and UNEP respectively on the BBC web site explores the role of the G8, Rio+20 and the role of the green economy. Greenpeace have brought out a challenge for Rio+20 as have Christian Aid and Stakeholder Forum on Monday the 6th. We are one year from Rio+20 and my prediction is that Rio will result in: On Green Economy: 1. A set of principles for the Green Economy; 2. A set of Sustainable Development Goals with particular focus on sustainable development goals under the green sectors - Potentially 5-9 green economy sectors will be addressed. This would include energy, agriculture, urbanization, water, biodiversity. These could then be fed into the MDG Summit in 2015. On Governance 1. In International Environmental Governance: a. WEO: Probably not a WEO – maybe a process of clustering towards a point where governments feel comfortable with a WEO – this could be a ...