Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The United Nations General Assembly in December agreed to a new Earth Summit in 2012. The Summit will be held in Brazil and will focus on four areas: The Green Economy Emerging Issues Sustainable Development Governance Review of previous commitments Follow developments on the Earth Summit 2012 web site.

The Commonwealth Peoples Forum meeting prior to the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting endorsed that Rio+20 should have a major focus on the green economy

Sweden speaking for the Euroepan Union and the Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Montenegro and Serbia as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Armenia align themselves with this statement Mr. Jakob Ström, Counsellor with the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the UN said to the UN General Assembly "With appreciation for the G77 proposal, the EU values a High-level Event on Sustainable Development in 2012 as an opportunity to make further progress on the mainstreaming of sustainability policies that foster green economy and reduce poverty. For an event to be meaningful there has to be broad agreement in this Assembly on how it can complement already ongoing processes in the field of sustainable development and be planned so as not to divert resources from or negatively affect them. The EU looks forward to engage actively in the forthcom...

In a statement by Annette Ellis the Parliamentary Advisor to the Australian Mission to the UN, Annette said: "We welcome the opportunity to discuss a possible high level event on sustainable development in 2012, and look forward to hearing the views of others on this proposal."

In the statement by Dr Asad Khan Minister of Pakistan to the UN concernign Rio+20 he said: "Clearly the challenge of sustainable development has become far too acute and big for any country to tackle. The UN undoubtedly, has a central role to play in this regard, particularly in advancing the global sustainable development to meet new and emerging challenges in an increasingly globalized world. The need for an integrated and coordinated response to arrest, reduce and rverse the negative trends is, therefore, vital. In this regard we look forward to an early decision on convening a world summit on sustainable development in 2012 in Rio, Brazil to carry out a comprehensive review of the implementation of Sustainable Development Agenda since Stockholm and to delineate a roadmap for future actions to effectively deal with new and emerging sustainable development challenges."

Lastly, we have on our agenda a proposal to convene a high-level event on sustainable development in 2012. We are all aware what such an event takes of time and resources. Still, events of this nature are sometimes required when we are faced with new global challenges. If we agree on the need for a new high-level event, it is crucial that its agenda is forward-looking and focused. It should in no way overlap with or undermine the work of neither CSD nor other intergovernmental bodies. What pressing issues of a political nature may require heads of state and government to gather in order to find common solutions to common challenges? Two topics that have been suggested are green economy and water. Both represent important challenges that are not properly dealt with in existing international fora, and deserve serious consideration. A third proposal concerns reform of the International Environmental Governance system (IEG). This is not a new topic. The challenges faced by today’s system a...

In its statement to the UN Committee Two India backs the Summit. It said: "The need for sustainable development has perhaps never been felt as strongly as it is being felt today. The multiple inter-linked crisis that we face today necessarily need an integrated approach to sustainable development, with emphasis on all its three pillars of economic development, social development and environmental protection. This is key to achieving our devlopment goals, particularly that of eradicating poverty and hunger. We agree with the views expressed in the report of the Secretary General that Agenda 21 was truly an attempt to bring diverse agendas together. It is important that we continue to strive for full implementation of this important consensus as well as its Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. In this regard we also support the holding of a "Rio+20" event in Brazil in 2012 to comprehensively reveiw progress made in implementing the sustainable developmentagenda."