Home » Posts tagged 'sustainable development'

Tag Archives: sustainable development

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

Sustainable Development Goals: No More Complacency, Urgency Needed!

September 7, 2018

Sustainable Development Goals: No More Complacency, Urgency Needed!

“We face mounting challenges in the form of growing numbers of conflicts, rising inequality, erosion of human rights, unprecedented global humanitarian crisis….climatechange is moving faster than we are; yet we see insufficient political will to meet commitments.” Remarked UN Secretary General António Guterresin the closing of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF).

“We are ashamed of our indicators on gender equality, continuing domestic violence…we are not doing enough” lamented the Minister from Dominican Republic, an island nation in the Caribbean, in his country context at the HLPF.

These are some alarming admissions by the world leaders who met during the HLPF at the UN headquarters in New York from 9 – 18 July 2018. It is the major review point for the 2030 Agenda and this year 46 nations presented their voluntary national reviews (VNR) in a packed schedule that included participation by governments, UN, civil society, private companies and others.

The Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted in September 2015, is into its third year of implementation. There have been some achievements in basic education, maternal and child mortality situations etc. These are encouraging signs, but the inequality of benefit distribution paints a shoddy picture i.e. three quarters of children affected by stunting live in Southern Asia and sub- Saharan Africa.Meanwhile, access to energy has also increased over the last years.

It is worthwhile to discuss countries’ progress on the SDGs as reported at the HLPF. Senegal reported on its social protection mechanisms, which cover health, education etc for street children, women and people in informal sectors. While Switzerland has a well-established social protection system and mechanism to protect environment and forest, it is facing challenges on rising inequality and groups like women and persons with disabilities are being left behind. Laos is growing fast with 7% GDP growth and 84% rural electrification – while it has a green growth strategy, it admits to the widening inequality between rural and urban areas.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World can limit global warming to 1.5C by ‘improving energy efficiency’

June 5, 2018

World can limit global warming to 1.5C by ‘improving energy efficiency’

It is possible to limit global warming to 1.5C and achieve many of the sustainable development goals without “negative emissions technologies”, a new study finds.

The research suggests that improving energy efficiency – chiefly by saving on everyday energy use – could play a major role in restricting warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which is the aspirational target of the Paris Agreement.

Emerging technologies, such as multipurpose smartphones and electric autonomous cars, could be key to improving energy efficiency both in the developed world and the global south, the lead author tells Carbon Brief.

The “landmark” study provides policymakers with tools to implement strategies to rapidly increase energy efficiency, another scientist tells Carbon Brief.

Negative emissions

Under the Paris Agreement, countries agreed that warming should be limited to “well below” 2C above pre-industrial levels, with efforts to keep it below 1.5C. Since then, researchers have developed a range of scenarios to explore how this could be achieved.

Until recently, scenarios limiting warming to 1.5C have typically relied on the rapid and widespread deployment of negative emissions technologies (NETs).

NETs are a group of methods – many still in development – that would limit global warming by removing CO2 from the air and storing it on land, underground or in the oceans.

In particular, most 1.5C scenarios assume that the world will develop large-scale bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Put simply, BECCS involves burning biomass – such as trees and crops – to generate energy and then capturing the resulting CO2 emissions.

The assumption that BECCS will be needed to reach 1.5C has proved controversialamong some groups. This is because BECCS has yet to be demonstrated at a commercial scale and research suggests that deployment would take up large amounts of land, which could threaten food production and wildlife.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Changing Climate on Climate Change

September 18, 2015

The Changing Climate on Climate Change

In the early 1990s, when I was Prime Minister of Norway, I once found myself debating sustainable development with an opposition leader who insisted that I tell him the government’s single most important priority in that field. Frustrated, I replied that what he was asking was impossible to answer. I concluded our exchange by explaining why: “Because everything is connected to everything.”

Fortunately, such thinking is now more widely held than it was back then, thanks partly to the human development approach, which emphasizes the complexity of nature and recognizes that one-dimensional solutions cannot address multidimensional problems like those we currently face. Indeed, today’s challenges are seldom simply environmental, social, or economic, and their solutions do not lie within the area of competence of a single government ministry. Without broad, multidisciplinary impact analysis, such narrow thinking can lead to new problems.

This is particularly true of climate change. Fortunately, a growing realization that rising global temperatures are not simply an environmental concern provides reason to hope that world leaders are finally ready to address the problem in an effective way.

Later this year, the member states of the United Nations will meet in Paris to adopt a comprehensive agreement to combat climate change. In the talks leading up to the conference, a consensus has emerged that climate change is not only linked to many other major environmental problems (climate, water, soil, and biodiversity are all a part of the same system); it is also intertwined with social and economic challenges, like poverty, sustainable development, and the wellbeing of future generations.

Read more at https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/paris-climate-change-december-agreement-by-gro-harlem-brundtland-2015-09#qRgYXrjb3GEKW2Bl.99

UN plan to save Earth is “fig leaf” for Big Business: insiders

September 5, 2015

UN plan to save Earth is “fig leaf” for Big Business: insiders

Why the new Sustainable Development agenda is “fundamentally compromised” by corporate interests

UN records reveal that the intergovernmental body has already marginalised the very groups it claims to be rescuing from poverty, hunger and climate disaster.

At the end of this month, the UN will launch its new 2030 Sustainable Development agenda for “people, planet and prosperity” in New York, where it will be formally adopted by over 150 world leaders.

The culmination of years of consultations between governments, communities and businesses all over the world, there is no doubt that the agenda’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer an unprecedented vision of the interdependence of global social, economic and environmental issues.

But records from the SDG process reveal that insiders at the heart of the UN’s intergovernment engagement negotiations have criticised the international body for pandering to the interests of big business and ignoring recommendations from grassroots stakeholders representing the world’s poor.

Formal statements issued earlier this year as part of the UN’s Post-2015 Intergovernmental Negotiations on the SDGs, and published by the UN Sustainable Development Division, show that UN ‘Major Groups’ representing indigenous people, civil society, workers, young people and women remain deeply concerned by the general direction of the SDG process — whereas corporate interests from the rich, industrialised world have viewed the process favourably.

Big business

Among the ‘Major Groups’ engaged in the UN’s SDG process is ‘Business and Industry.’ Members of this group include fossil fuel companies like Statoil USA and Tullow Oil, multinational auto parts manufacturer Bridgestone Corporation, global power management firm Eaton Corporation, agribusiness conglomerate Monsanto, insurance giant Thamesbank, financial services major Bank of America, and hundreds of others from Coca Cola to Walt Disney to Dow Chemical.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

The 2030 Agenda: This Month The UN Launches A Blueprint For A New World Order With The Help Of The Pope

September 4, 2015

The 2030 Agenda: This Month The UN Launches A Blueprint For A New World Order With The Help Of The Pope

The 2030 Agenda - Earth - Public DomainDid you know that the UN is planning to launch a “new universal agenda” for humanity in September 2015?  That phrase does not come from me – it is actually right in the very first paragraph of the official document that every UN member nation will formally approve at a conference later this month.  The entire planet is going to be committing to work toward 17 sustainable development goals and 169 specific sustainable development targets, and yet there has been almost a total media blackout about this here in the United States.  The UN document promises that this plan will “transform our world for the better by 2030“, and yet very few Americans have even heard of the 2030 Agenda at this point.  Instead, most of us seem to be totally obsessed with the latest celebrity gossip or the latest nasty insults that our puppet politicians have been throwing around at one another.  It absolutely amazes me that more people cannot understand that Agenda 2030 is a really, really big deal.  When will people finally start waking up?

As I discussed in a previous article, the 2030 Agenda is taking the principles and goals laid out in Agenda 21 to an entirely new level.  Agenda 21 was primarily focused on the environment, but the 2030 Agenda addresses virtually all areas of human activity.  It truly is a blueprint for global governance.

And later this month, nearly every nation on the entire planet is going to be signing up for this new agenda.  The general population of the planet is going to be told that this agenda is “voluntary” and that it is all about “ending poverty” and “fighting climate change”, but that is not the full story.  Unfortunately, there is so much positive spin around this plan that most people will not be able to see through it.  Just check out an excerpt from a piece that was published on the official UN website yesterday…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

 

Pope Francis Calls For A New Global Political Authority To Save Humanity

June 19, 2015

Pope Francis Calls For A New Global Political Authority To Save Humanity

Global Puzzle - Public DomainPope Francis says that global warming is a fact and that a new global political authority is necessary in order to save humanity from utter disaster.  The new encyclical that was scheduled to be released on Thursday has been leaked, and it is being reported that this new global political authority that Pope Francis envisions would be in charge of “the reduction of pollution and the development of poor countries and regions”.  The funny thing is that this sounds very much in line with the new sustainable development agenda that is going to be launched at the United Nations in September.  This radical new agenda is already being called “Agenda 21 on steroids” because it goes so much farther than Agenda 21 ever did.  The new UN agenda does not just address the environment – it also addresses issues such as poverty, agriculture, education and gender equality.  It is essentially a blueprint for governing the entire planet, and that sounds very much like what Pope Francis also wants.  In fact, Pope Francis is going to give the speech that kicks off the UN conference in September where this new sustainable agenda will be launched.  For some reason, this Pope has decided to make the fight against climate change the central pillar of his papacy, and he is working very hard to unite as much of humanity as possible to get behind that effort.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

In September, The UN Launches A Major Sustainable Development Agenda For The Entire Planet

May 12, 2015

In September, The UN Launches A Major Sustainable Development Agenda For The Entire Planet

The UN plans to launch a brand new plan for managing the entire globe at the Sustainable Development Summit that it will be hosting from September 25th to September 27th.  Some of the biggest names on the planet, including Pope Francis, will be speaking at this summit.  This new sustainable agenda focuses on climate change of course, but it also specifically addresses topics such as economics, agriculture, education and gender equality.  For those wishing to expand the scope of “global governance”, sustainable development is the perfect umbrella because just about all human activity affects the environment in some way.  The phrase “for the good of the planet” can be used as an excuse to micromanage virtually every aspect of our lives.  So for those that are concerned about the growing power of the United Nations, this summit in September is something to keep an eye on.  Never before have I seen such an effort to promote a UN summit on the environment, and this new sustainable development agenda is literally a framework for managing the entire globe.

If you are not familiar with this new sustainable development agenda, the following is what the official United Nations website says about it…

The United Nations is now in the process of defining Sustainable Development Goals as part a new sustainable development agenda that must finish the job and leave no one behind. This agenda, to be launched at the Sustainable Development Summit in September 2015, is currently being discussed at the UN General Assembly, where Member States and civil society are making contributions to the agenda.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Is Sustainable Development an Oxymoron?

January 12, 2015

Is Sustainable Development an Oxymoron?

We love Eleanor Roosevelt. And Eleanor Roosevelt loved the United Nations. While it does not necessarily follow that we too love the United Nations, we have always felt that the central idea of a United Nations was a good one, in fact it is really the only one that has any chance at all of ending war, colonialism, slave trade, arms trade, nuclear power and weapons, and destruction of the Earth’s natural patrimony, be it oceans, atmosphere, biodiversity, sacred sites or indigenous wisdom.

Like it or don’t, these days if you want to resolve conflict, either between groups humans or with the natural world, at the global scale, it is the only game in town.

“OK, everybody was aware of the horrors that nationalism had wrought in the immediate aftermath of World War II. So, instead of—one impulse was to create something called the United Nations. And then, the unfortunate side impulse was: Let’s not give it any power; that’s too dangerous.”

— Art Spiegelman, Democracy Now, January 8, 2014

In his 2015 Forecast for the USA,  James Howard Kunstler emotes an R.Crumb-style, dystopian vision of modernity:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ontario’s Sustainable Development Plan Is Beginning To Fall Apart | Canadian Awareness Network

December 14, 2014

Ontario’s Sustainable Development Plan Is Beginning To Fall Apart | Canadian Awareness Network.

In recent weeks reports about green energy jobs surpassing oil sand job creation, of Ontario taking big steps into the growing green bonds market, and many more stories that would lead people to believe that sustainable development is excelling in the province. Have been splashed all over the news.

Is this true? Or just stories that do not paint the whole picture?

Green energy programs have created around 1,000 more jobs than the oil sands. That part is correct, but there is several points that have been left out.

1. Clean energy programs have created 23,700 jobs compaired to 22,340 by the oil sands projects. This leaves out that overall oil production in Alberta alone, employs more than 120,000 people. If we are going to compare job creation between the two industries, would it not make sense to include all stats and figures? This is leaving out the comparision of how many of these jobs are temperary and how many are permanent as well.

2. Green energy programs would have been halted a long time ago without government subsidies. Below is a breakdown of how much is being spent to keep the programs afloat and how much it is costing the people of the province.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress