Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The Webinar addressed the following: T The themes and important deadlines The structure of UNEP and UNEA The Oslo consultation Opportunities for stakeholders The Webinar was run by Felix Dodds and Jan-Gustav Strandenaes  There is guide on UNEA 5 produced by Stakeholder Forum in English, Spanish, French and Russian and can be found here.

Newly installed renewable power capacity increasingly costs less than the cheapest power generation options based on fossil fuels. The cost data presented in this comprehensive study from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) confirms how decisively the tables have turned. The key findings are available in  Arabic   (عربي) , Chinese  (中文) , French  (français) , German  (Deutsch) , Japanese  (日本語) , Spanish  (español) . More than half of the renewable capacity added in 2019 achieved lower electricity costs than new coal. New solar and wind projects are undercutting the cheapest of existing coal-fired plants, the report finds. Auction results show these favourable cost trends for renewables accelerating. See the interactive infographic on  How Falling Costs Make Renewables a Cost-effective Investment Solar and wind power costs have continued to fall, complementing the more mature bioenergy, geothermal and hydropower technologies. So...

PRESS RELEASE UK GOVERNMENT:  The Bureau of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), with the UK and its Italian partners, agreed today new dates for the COP26 UN climate conference, which will now take place between 1 and 12 November 2021 in Glasgow. The agreement followed consultation with UNFCCC members, delivery partners and the international climate community. The conference was originally set to take place in November 2020, but had been postponed due to COVID-19. In the run up to November 2021, the UK as hosts will continue to work with all involved to increase climate action, build resilience and lower emissions. The new date will also allow the UK and our Italian partners to harness our incoming G7 and G20 presidencies in driving climate ambition. The decision on the new date comes as the UK Government announces that over 25 experts in multiple global sectors will be advising the COP26 Presidency. The Friends of CO...

Guest Blog by Barry Carney: MSc (Centre for Alternative Technology, UK); CAT is an education hub for sustainable solutions. Barry has a professional background in creative industries, his research explores complex challenges. He is a Change Agents UK research associate focusing on transformations via action- and values-based pathways. In the age of the Anthropocene, we urgently need new ways of thinking and acting. Economists are predicting that biophysical limits will determine the post-growth world and, as things stand, this will be characterised by mass migration, profound natural hazards, and huge discontinuities for human and natural systems (Crownshaw et al ., 2018). Epidemiologists warn how climate change will create a world of unprecedented new diseases. The current pandemic is sending disruptive shockwaves through all our interconnected global, environmental, socio-economic and human systems. With this, we have opportunities to alter current systems at the deepest of level...

IRENA PRESS RELEASE: This joint tracking report monitors and assesses global progress in the quest for sustainable, affordable, reliable and modern energy services for everyone. Published annually by the custodian agencies of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 7 on energy, the report serves to guide international co-operation and policy-making to achieve universal, sustainable energy access by 2030. The annual SDG 7 tracking report includes the official dashboard of global, regional and national progress on four key energy targets: 7.1 : Ensuring universal access to electricity and clean cooking solutions; 7.2 : Substantially increasing the share of renewable energy; 7.3 : Doubling progress on energy efficiency; 7.A : Increasing international collaboration in support of clean and renewable energy. The world has made promising progress towards ensuring universal access to sustainable energy over the last decade. The number of people without access to electricity fell from 1.2 billion gl...

Guest blog by Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky  Former UN Independent Expert on debt and human rights.   From February 2011 to April 2014 he worked as a Sovereign Debt Expert for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) coordinating the Expert Group on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing.  He has published books and articles on sovereign financing, foreign investment, transitional justice and human rights. In May 2019, when Evo Morales was still in power, I conducted a mission to Bolivia to report on the links between the economy and human rights in the country. In March this year the Bolivian government made it clear at the Human Rights Council that it didn’t like what the report said. I would like to share with you the article just published based on the findings of the report. The article goes attached.  Many scholars and social activists consider the economic and social policies implemented during the Evo Morales governments in Bol...

Guest blog by: Antonio Roque, Co-founder of the World Peace Alliance he has operational and leadership experience in working with fortune 500 tech companies in Cloud, IoT and software. He is very focused on sustainability and to find technological and institutional ways to achieve it and on helping space exploration. Around the world, people are facing circumstances they’ve never see before. The recent world pandemic forced drastic changes in our communities and ourselves across our planet, it forever has changed economic and social systems, and the way we deal with our environment. The longer a lockdown is sustained, the deeper the economic scars, and the slower the recovery. As example, many small firms might not return with the recovery, unemployment rises at an unprecedented rate, there is a weapons race, wealth is distributed completely disproportionally, opportunities are only for a few and not for all, not to mention about science, healthcare and education that should be availa...