Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

((Rogue CNN exists in a parallel universe to ours where a property developer and reality TV star gets elected President)) Wolf:  Welcome to the show. Within 5 days of each other we have had the chance to see two White House Communications Plans by two different White House staff. The Mooch distributed internally in the White House on the 30th of July (republished at the end of this blog) and now today Michael Strauss’s. Let’s get the views of our panel here today. David Gergen who has been an adviser to four different Presidents what is your view of the new White House Communications Plan? Gergen: Well the first thing I would like to say is I can’t remember a time when ANY White House Communication Plan has been seen by the media before. So, another 1st for the Trump Presidency . What I would say is - what a difference - between the Mooch and Strauss . The Mooch is a sycophantic plan that shows his lack of any understanding of the role of a Communications Director with a...

As the global population approaches nine billion people, today’s world is one of increasing needs, decreasing natural resources, and rapid technological change. In September 2015, the UN General Assembly formally established 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be addressed by 2030, which effectively provide a common framework for public and private stakeholders to set their agendas and define their policies and strategies over the next 15 years. $5-7 trillion a year until 2030 is needed to realise the SDGs worldwide, including investments into infrastructure, clean energy, water and sanitation and agriculture. The greater part of the necessary financing and investment will need to stem from private finance. While a wide range of sustainable finance products and services are available in the market, these mobilise limited funds compared to what is needed and for a limited number of things – based on a pre-identification of acceptable sectors and activities. Hindered by ofte...

((Rogue CNN exists in a parallel universe to ours where a property developer and reality TV star gets elected President)) Wolf: Well what a week it’s been here in Washington – AGAIN!!! We have no health bill with Senators McCain, Murkowski and Collins voting no against the skinny health care bill. We have the new White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci – on his first day - talking on the record to New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza . On the call indicating that White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebu s is behind the leaks from the White House and Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon is basically more interested in creating his own empire and taking up yoga. The continued tweeting of the President to undermine US Attorney General Jeff Sessions .  With Republicans indicating their support for Sessions perhaps best expressed by Sen. Lindsey Sessions "If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay." He went on to say and to underline “Any ...

The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is pleased to announce our intention to reconvene our Nexus conference addressing Water-Energy-Food and Climate on April 16-18. We have just opened the chance to submit abstracts.  This will be the second Nexus Conference that The Water Institute organized the first in 2014 made a significant input to the negotiations for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), through the Chapel Hill Declaration . The 2030 Agenda adopted in 2015 at its heart has 17 SDGs, 169 targets, and 232 indicators. It is the blueprint to a more sustainable, fair and equitable world. It is the first global agreement that recognizes the inter-linkages between sectors and suggests ways to address them. The 2018 Nexus Conference will focus on the: Science-policy interface; partnerships; solutions; review of Sustainable Development Goal commitments (2018 and for the Heads of State review in 2019); sharing of tools, indicators a...

This is an important time for the UN with reform ideas in the air.  Do you as a ‘stakeholder’ want to have a say – well the system is now up and running under the Deputy Secretary General (DSG) for you to do that. I made my initial comments in a previous blog here. The first Secretary Generals Report can befound here . My advice is if you have some ideas now is the time to start formulating them and discussing them with Member States and the DSGs Office. The Deputy Secretary General is now leading the process to follow up the publication of the Secretary General’s Report on the re-positioning of the United Nations Development System to support the delivery of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The second report is due out in December. The consultation that is envisioned – which I will outline later is this blog – should help focus that second report.  The report and its recommendations will be considered during the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in its ...

((Rogue CNN exists in a parallel universe to ours where a property developer and reality TV star gets elected President)) Wolf: We are about to go to hear from White House Press Secretary Michael Strauss but before we do that lets just talk to the panel we have here -  Charles Krauthammer:  Fox contributor who is trying out Rogue CNN tonight to see if he prefers a channel that speaks to the truth. Charles welcome. Charles: Thank you Wolf. I just want to underscore what I said in my column I believe that the Russian scandal has entered a new phase, and there's no going back. I have long been a skeptic of charges of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, but "open to empirical evidence." With the revelation about emails between Donald Trump Jr. and a business associate who helped arrange a meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer, I have said that "evidence is now shown." This is not hearsay, not fake news, not unsourced leaks th...

As someone who has been to all the previous Commission on Sustainable Development meetings and now the High Level Political Forum I probably have a unique view of what has worked and what has not. The History How did we get the HLPF? Well that is a good question. The old Commission on Sustainable Development had a good first ten year from 1993 to 2002. It had some major successes during those years such as: Facilitating the discussion that birthed the POPs and PICs agreements; Facilitated the process on Forests that set up the UN Forum on Forests; Set a date for all countries to complete their Sustainable Development Strategies (2002); Expansion of the United Nations guidelines on consumer protection to include sustainable consumption;  Birthed the process that became Financing for Development; Birthed the process that became the Conferences on Land Based Pollution to the Marine Environment (The latest will be in Indonesia in October)  Set up under the UN General...