Main pre rio stakeholder conference



This years UN NGO DPI Conference will have the dual conference themes: sustainable societies and responsive citizens, allows the host country, Germany, and NGOs world-wide to showcase the impact volunteers make on sustainable livelihoods.

It will also give NGOs the opportunity to contribute to the two-day special session of the General Assembly on the 10th Anniversary of the International Year of Volunteers in December 2011 and begin preparations for input into the 2012 conference on sustainable development known as Rio +20.

Go to register now to attend the main pre Rio+20 stakeholder conference. There will be major speakers such as Achim Steiner, roundtables on the major themes of Rio+20 and also what can be done to engage individually in creating a sustainable society. Soon over 24 workshops will be announced and other major speakers.

The output will be a declaration for Rio+20 and input to the GA debate on volunteers .

Tea Party and US fringe groups

I think all the evidence we have from the IPCC Reports, the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook, the Planetary Boundaries work, etc should be enough to tell us that we are not living on this planet sustainably. What that means is we need to do things differently. Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation were roadmaps to how we might start to do that.

What is clear twenty years from the first Earth Summit is that our politicians did not take those warnings seriously enough.

Since 2002 a series of new terms have come into use such a climate security, energy security, food security and water security. The beginning of a new nexus of environment and security. What this should do is redouble our efforts to find a way to live in balance with each other on this planet.

What worries me is not just that the politicians do not understand the urgency but that those associated with the Tea Party are attacking Agenda 21. From the mother jones blog on what the TEa Party is saying: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/tea-party-agenda-21-un-sustainable-development

"Agenda 21 paranoia has swept the Tea Party scene, driving activists to delve into the minutiae of local government."

Its as if Agenda 21 and the sustainable development community are the new communists. Of course underlying all this is the comments by President Bush in 1992 that "the US way of life is non negotiable" so we should all be entitled to that way of life if we do then we will need a few more planets to be able to achieve a similar standard of living.

Trump now not a US Presidential candidate went very close to in an interview with George Stephanopoulos saying that the US should secure its oil with force. What he did say was about the Iraqi oil. "To the winner belong the spoils. You go in you win the war and you take it."

These comments and approaches in part are due to the worry of many that the way of the life will have to change and that it will not look like it has for the last thirty odd years. There has been a role back of benefits for the poor in the north and a huge increase for those who have money. When President Reagan came to power the top tax rate in the US was 70% now its round 35%.

The question is what kind of world do we want to live in and how can we do that equitably. Agenda 21 gives a solution attaching it might seem fun for the Tea Party but what is their solution?

The next decade will need very fundamental change in our ways of consumption and production - it will need a change in our lifestyles. If we want to live in a fair, equitable and democratic world then there is much that needs to change. The approach of people in the tea party is just going to ensure we get to a unfair, unequal and non democratic and unstable world much quick. The new Earth Summit in 2012 needs to address this.

The last UN Commission on Sustainable Development

A nice photo at the last morning session of the stakeholders attending the UN CSD in May. It was reported as the last CSD and with the failure later that day or rather the next morning of the CSD to pass any text the question is what will take its place?

There is some discussion on a sustainable development council of the UN General Assembly to discuss new and emerging issues such as climate security, food security, water security, energy security and the inter linkages. The UN has no where yet to discuss this and that would place sustainable development at the highest level of the UN. Another idea is reform of the UN Economic and Social Council but this has been tried before with out much success. In addition there is a concern at the lack of UN inter agency coordination which after the UN Inter agency Committee on Sustainable Development was closed down in UN reform process in 1998 and replaced in the next century by UN Oceans, UN Water and UN Energy. So some work to be done here.

What about the work at the national level? With the hope in Rio in 1992 of National Councils on Sustainable Development to be set up in all countries not fulfilled what can Rio+20 do to relight this approach at the national level? Perhaps these national Councils should be formerly linked to a new UN process on sustainable development at the global level. If it was then countries might re-establish these multistakeholder platforms post Rio+20.

Finally what about the local level? Rio+20 should relight the Local Agenda 21 process that was so intense after 1992 but now with the knowledge of what works and doesn't it could be a real bonus to making the link between local and global.

Just a few thoughts on this Tuesday afternoon.

What Now?

The next six months will be critical is setting the bar high for the Earth Summit in Rio.

The process of developing a negotiating text is that governments and stakeholders alike have been asked to input their views to what is being called a zero draft of text by the 1st of November.

Already there are a set of core green economy themes on many peoples lists. These are: the blue economy, agriculture, energy, water, urbanisation -- then others that are on many but not all lists: SCP, CESR, biodiversity.

In light of the failure of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development to agree any text that leaves in particular sustainable consumption and production requiring to have it discussed in Rio so expect a big push here.

We have now moved in to a period of informal workshops on aspects of the green economy organised by the UN, governments or stakeholders they are an attempt to bring the negotiators up to speed in areas that haven't traditionally been ones they have covered - economy.

One of the big questions that has been asked by stakeholders and governments is where is UNEP and the Bank? Neither so far have been evident at the highest level. If this Summit is to really have the impact it needs then it needs to move from the environment departments in governments to their economic and development ministries supported by their environment ministries.

To kick off the preparations for the Earth Summit Stakeholder Forum have produced the first t-shirt - Earth Summit 2012

It is available in all sizes and some colours.

There will be more to follow coming on the Earth Summit 2012 web site

New book out

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Insecurity- A Planet in Peril - edited by Ahmed Djoghlaf and Felix Dodds is the third in a series covering environmental security. The first Human and Environmental security edited by Felix Dodds and Tim Pippard (2005) and the second Climate and Energy Insecurity edited by Felix Dodds, Andrew Higham and Richard Sherman (2009) attempts to iutline the increasing links between environment and security that have become clearer since the World Summit on Sustainabke Development in 2002. The lack of implementation of the Rio and the Johannesburg agreements have made the world a more dangerous and less equitable place.

The latest book has contibutions from Bob Watson, Thomas Lovejoy, Achim Steiner, Pavan Sukhdev, Monique Barbut and Johan Rockstrom.