The idea to set
up a World Environment Organisation was a popular, sexy one – but it would have
been a big step back
Friday, 22 June 2012
John Kerry and His First Cousin (a UN-DESA employee) : Both Pushing Hard for the U.N. Climate Change Agenda - VIDEO
U.S. Senator John Kerry
and Brice Lalonde, the French-born coordinator of the United Nations Rio + 20
summit conference on sustainable development ,which got under way this week,
have a lot in common. Among other things, they are first cousins, a fact widely
reported when Kerry ran for the U.S. presidency in 2004.
And now both of them are
involved in pressing for the success of a radical U.N. agenda for climate
change that seems to be faltering in the face of global economic crisis.
Feel-Good Environmentalism at the U.N. Why do the global glitterati ignore water and air pollution?
By BJORN LOMBORG
... It's the height of
arrogance to think that Third World countries should use weak and expensive
technologies just to make some in the West feel good. In essence, the global
elite is telling coughing Third World people sitting in their dark hovels:
"Get a solar panel." That's akin to telling people suffering from water
pollution to drink Perrier. Or indeed, to suggest that breadless people should
eat cake.
There are real and often
overlooked environmental problems to be tackled. We need to talk less about
ineffective, "feel-good" solutions to global warming and more about
smart fixes to air and water pollution. We need to take back our environmental
summits from the well-meaning glitterati and do what works.
Mr. Lomborg is
an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and the author of
"The Skeptical Environmentalist" (Cambridge Press, 2001) and
"Cool It" (Knopf, 2007).
Rio Outcome Bleak With No New Funding* (Sha Zukang last catastrophe PR campaign)
... “If developing
countries are not brought on board, the outcome document will remain a pious
list of unfulfilled dreams. The future that we all want must be a future that
we all can have,” said Kohona, a former chief of the U.N. Treaty Section, who
has been closely monitoring negotiations both at Rio+20 and the
politically-disastrous 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen...
Insiders: Global Conferences Becoming Obsolete (UN-DESA fails in Rio+20)
... In light of this trend,
most National Journal Insiders say that it’s time for negotiators to trade in
mammoth environment and climate summits for smaller, focused meetings that
might yield more results.
Fifty-three percent of
Insiders say that the world should forgo the high-profile conferences like
Rio+20 and the U.N. climate summit later this year for smaller, more
incremental meetings...
FOX NEWS: U.N. investigating Judge Rotenberg Center’s use of shocks (first such investigation in US soil)
BOSTON -
Powerful video of a Judge Rotenberg Center student shocked and restrained for hours continues to reverberate on Beacon Hill and beyond, with opponents of the treatment stepping up efforts to ban the shocks as the United Nations expert on torture says he's investigating the school.
The video has helped fuel a renewed lobbying effort to ban the long-controversial shocks. Several opponents of the shocks, including the mother of the student in that video, visited lawmakers' offices today to press for the ban.
"We're going to continue to let our children be tortured? I just hope that they come to their senses are realize this is wrong and it's been wrong for the last 27 years," said Cheryl McCollins, mother of former Rotenberg Center student Andre McCollins.
Opponents want the full Legislature to adopt a Senate budget amendment to ban the shocks. The measure is being considered by a joint House-Senate conference committee that is hashing out the state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Word on whether it's included in the Legislature's final budget could come any day.
The Judge Rotenberg Center is the only place in the country to use this kind of shock treatment, and now scrutiny is also coming from Juan Mendez, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Read more: http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/18840703/2012/06/20/un-investigating-judge-rotenberg-centers-use-of-shocks#ixzz1yWKERIfG
Powerful video of a Judge Rotenberg Center student shocked and restrained for hours continues to reverberate on Beacon Hill and beyond, with opponents of the treatment stepping up efforts to ban the shocks as the United Nations expert on torture says he's investigating the school.
The video has helped fuel a renewed lobbying effort to ban the long-controversial shocks. Several opponents of the shocks, including the mother of the student in that video, visited lawmakers' offices today to press for the ban.
"We're going to continue to let our children be tortured? I just hope that they come to their senses are realize this is wrong and it's been wrong for the last 27 years," said Cheryl McCollins, mother of former Rotenberg Center student Andre McCollins.
Opponents want the full Legislature to adopt a Senate budget amendment to ban the shocks. The measure is being considered by a joint House-Senate conference committee that is hashing out the state budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1. Word on whether it's included in the Legislature's final budget could come any day.
The Judge Rotenberg Center is the only place in the country to use this kind of shock treatment, and now scrutiny is also coming from Juan Mendez, the United Nations' Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Read more: http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/18840703/2012/06/20/un-investigating-judge-rotenberg-centers-use-of-shocks#ixzz1yWKERIfG
Wednesday, 20 June 2012
New low for UN-DESA: Nikhil Seth blows it in Rio (GreenPeace calls it an epic failure)
Greenpeace International Executive Director has released a statement on
his views of Rio+20. "The future we want has gotten a little further
away today. Rio+20 has turned into an epic failure, It has failed on
equity, failed on ecology and failed on economy" were Kumi Naidoo frank
comments after the text for the outcome document was adopted. Please
click here for the full statement.
Rio+20: Is this Sha Zukang and Nikhil Seth's last failure ?
Is the Rio+20 Environmental Summit a Failure?
CLICK HERE FOR STORY ON DAILY BEAST
Obama and Cameron missing, economies crashing, a conference document that managed to displease everyone—Rio+20, marking the 20th anniversary of the famed Earth Summit, looks like a bust as world leaders arrive. Mac Margolis reports.
But add a war party of Amazonian tribesmen painted for battle and a roadblock of topless feminists protesting the “commoditization” of nature, and the makings of an urban meltdown are complete. Welcome to green gridlock, the traffic jam to save the planet...
RIO+20 a FAILURE: Nikhil Seth and Sha Zukang force an "ad-referendum" agreement after $219 Million spent on a conference
F A I L U R E
RIO+20 = AD-REFERENDUM AGREEMENT !!!!
Nikhil Seth and Sha Zukang drafting the "ad-referendum agreement"
as if they were the member states (what a shame)!!
USA and Europe speechless about the process...will see who will blame who?
Tuesday, 19 June 2012
The FP Twitterati 100 A who’s who of the foreign-policy Twitterverse in 2012.
... TURTLE BAY
Lou Charbonneau (@lou_reuters) -- Reuters reporter at the United Nations.
Mark Leon Goldberg (@MarkLGoldberg) -- Blogger for the United Nations Foundation's UN Dispatch, which covers the inner workings of Turtle Bay and Foggy Bottom.
Matthew Lee (@innercitypress) -- Eccentric but comprehensive U.N. coverage...
How should development workers live?
Ravi Kanbur has written an interesting paper (pdf) about how he feels as someone who makes a good living from analysing and writing about poverty. Here is an extract, but it is worth reading the whole, thoughtful piece: [http://kanbur.dyson.cornell.
Chinese and Haiyan Qian's role in "UN's internet power grab" role - (why is UN-DESA/DPADM building databases with info from every country - when is NOT mandated to do so?) Who is the final recipient of these data ...?
The U.N.'s Internet Power Grab
Leaked documents show a real threat to the international flow of information.
... These are weak responses even by Obama administration standards. Ever since the pre-Internet era of the 1970s, authoritarian regimes have sought to use the U.N. to establish an "information world order" based on government control, not open flows of information. The U.S. learned during the Cold War that the only way to stop U.N. meddling is to wield a big stick. Washington had to leave Unesco when it played the kind of dangerous game the ITU has now chosen.
It may be hard for the billions of Web users or the optimists of Silicon Valley to believe that an obscure agency of the U.N. can threaten their Internet, but authoritarian regimes are busy lobbying a majority of the U.N. members to vote their way. The leaked documents disclose a U.S. side that has hardly begun to fight back. That's no way to win this war.
U.N. puts Canada on human rights watchlist over Quebec demo law
Canada will be put in the company of some of the world’s worst abusers of human rights tomorrow when the UN’s highest human rights official expresses “alarm” over Quebec’s new law on demonstrations during her opening address to a meeting of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council, revealed the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch, which obtained an advance copy of her speech. Other states on the UN watchlist include Syria, Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
WallStreetJournal: - The Absurd International Criminal Court After 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars, it has completed precisely one trial.
By ERIC POSNER
... The court has been a failure. Although it has a staff of more than 700 and an annual budget in excess of $100 million, the ICC has so far completed precisely one trial—that of Thomas Lubanga, a commander in the civil war in Congo. It took three years and ended with a conviction on March 14, 2012. The appeals have not begun. A few other trials are ongoing or set to begin.
Even by the low standards of international tribunals, this performance should raise an eyebrow. What went wrong?..
Mr. Posner, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, is the author of "The Perils of Global Legalism" (University of Chicago Press, 2009). [www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/
The United Nations Won’t Tell the Public Where It Gets Its Money
... A member of the public might desire to learn, for example, where the UN gets its money. How much is each member nation contributing to the UN’s regular budget? To the capital budget? To peacekeeping operations? For a brief period, the UN posted such details monthly. But then at the end of 2010, the UN stopped disclosing its personal financial records. All you can get now is a PowerPoint file. For a somewhat unfair comparison, imagine if President Obama submitted his budget to Congress via PowerPoint...
Nikhil Seth's future is hanging on Rio+20 - (with a Pakistani appointed as ASG, and Sha Zukang out in 10 days his future stardom could be less certain)
Fear of failure ...?
Working the crowd ...!
With no agreement on "Draft" - Seth is thinking ...!
Monday, 18 June 2012
Rio+20 Earth summit is too important to fail, says Ban ki-Moon
The UN secretary general said the international community was in danger of squandering a once-in-a-generation opportunity
The Rise of UN Derangement Syndrome
Why does a small but dedicated group oppose ratifying the benign Law of the Sea Treaty, which both the U.S. Navy and Sarah Palin support?
Will the United Nations' legacy in Haiti be all about scandal?
The accomplishments of the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti have been overshadowed by scandals, from a cholera outbreak to sexual abuse cases. How will this affect future missions?
NY police charge U.N. official with sexual abuse (while Ban Ki-moon only demotes him from P5 - to- P4)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A mid-ranking U.N. official has been charged with sexual abuse, the New York Police Department said on Wednesday, nine months after a former U.N. contractor filed a complaint against him.
Dushyant Joshi, who works at the U.N. human resources department's emergency preparedness and support team, was arrested on Tuesday, a police official said.
BOOK LAUNCH - “ONLY ONE EARTH: THE LONG ROAD VIA RIO TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT”
By Felix Dodds and Michael Strauss with Maurice F. Strong
Routledge Publishing, June 2012
Routledge Publishing, June 2012
New book Only One Earth looks back over what has been achieved in the past forty years since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, and ahead to what critically needs to happen at Rio+20 and beyond. Written by Stakeholder Forum’s Executive Director, Felix Dodds, and Earthmedia’s Michael Strauss, with Maurice F. Strong, Former Secretary-General, “Earth Summit” [1992]; UN Conference on Human Environment [1972] and Executive Director, UNEP [1972-76].
Quotes
“Rio+20 as a unique opportunity to make the “change-of-course” called for by business leaders at the Earth Summit in 1992. It requires fundamental changes in the way in which we manage the activities through which we impact on the Earth’s sustainability. This will require a degree of cooperation beyond anything we have yet experienced at a time when competition and conflict over scarce resources is escalating.”
Maurice F. Strong
“In the same way that banks succeeded at privatizing the profits and socializing the losses as they led the global economy to the brink of collapse, we are in danger of doing the same with the environment. Humanity has taken a huge leap in the last decades and become a planetary-scale force – we need to behave as a global civilization if we are not to face catastrophic consequences.”
Felix Dodds (Observed in his role as Chair of the 2011 United Nations DPI-NGO Conference in Bonn)
(Video provided by UN News & Media)
(Photos provided by Environmental News Bulletin and Stakeholder Forum)
(Video provided by Stakeholder Forum)
Excerpts from 'Only One Earth' - Chapter 1
Excerpts from 'Only One Earth' - Chapter 2
Excerpts from 'Only One Earth' - Chapter 3
Excerpts from 'Only One Earth' - Chapter 4
UN radio interview with Felix Dodds on the hopes for Rio+20
Phone interviews can be arranged with the authors
To arrange a media interview, please contact Stakeholder Forum’s Communications Officer: Georgie Macdonald: Tel: +447411422581 or email: gmacdonald@stakeholderforum.org
- Copies can be purchased through Amazon
- UNCSD Website
- Earth Summit 2012
Contacts
Georgie Macdonald +447411422581 or gmacdonald@stakeholderforum.org (London based)
Anya Ruvinskaya +1 718 407-0337 or anya@earthmedia-summit.org (New York based)
More information
About the Rio+20 Conference
At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the future we want.
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) is being organized in pursuance of General Assembly Resolution 64/236 (A/RES/64/236), and will take place in Brazil on 20-22 June 2012 to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
Do we really want to hand more money over to the UN -- Senate should reject Law of the Sea
... The US currently enjoys sovereignty over its entire continental shelf. This allows Americans to utilize the zone economically, including oil and gas production. Royalties of 12.5% to 18.75% on what some believe to be worth billions or trillions currently accrue to the Treasury. But article 82 of the treaty alters this. It would divert royalties to a UN body in Kingston, Jamaica. The explicitly stated purpose: redistribution of wealth “on the basis of equitable sharing criteria, taking into account the interests and needs of developing States, particularly the least developed.” ...
Christian Whiton is a former U.S. State Department senior advisor and is a principal at DC International Advisory. [www.dciadvisory.com]
Why the U.N. Shouldn't Own the Seas (by Donald Rumsfeld)
The Law of the Sea Treaty is as harmful today as it was when Reagan and Thatcher first opposed it in 1982.
By DONALD RUMSFELD
... Even if one were to agree with the principle of global wealth redistribution from the U.S. to other nations, other U.N. bodies have proven notably unskilled at financial management. The U.N. Oil for Food program in Iraq, for instance, resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in corruption and graft that directly benefited Saddam Hussein and his allies. The Law of the Sea Treaty is an opportunity for scandal on an even larger scale...
Mr. Rumsfeld was secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 and from 2001 to 2006. He is author of "Known and Unknown: A Memoir" (Sentinel, 2011).
Is Nikhil Seth doing his job properly?
Nations at odds on Rio+20 earth summit
... One source close to the talks told BBC News that negotiators had been talking about punctuation, not principles...
IMF chief Christine Lagarde pays NO TAX on her £300,000 salary (despite attacking Greece for dodging payment)
•Questioned about Greek crisis head of IMF said country can help itself collectively 'by paying all their tax'
•Suggests that IMF's money would be better spent on African children than on people in Athens
•Lagarde takes home £298,675-a-year untaxed
•Receives further tax-free allowance package of £52,000
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
U.N. Climate Organization Wants Immunities Against Charges of Conflict of Interest, Exceeding Mandate, Among Others
The organization responsible for managing a global cap-and-trade system worth billions of dollars for carbon emissions projects around the world is trying to get sweeping legal immunities for its actions, even as it plans to expand its activities dramatically in the wake of the United Nations’ Rio + 20 summit on sustainable development, which starts June 20.
Despite its name, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, legal experts ruled in 2006 that it was not to be part of the U.N. system of organizations that has enjoyed diplomatic and legal immunities since the end of World War II. Now, it is scrambling to figure out how to get them. A meeting of a UNFCCC subsidiary in Bonn last month agreed to forward a new draft treaty covering the issue to another meeting in November.
Internal UNFCCC documents, examined by Fox News, show that among other things, top officials hope to use those immunities to avoid challenges in the future based on such things as:
How Would You Measure Success at the Rio Summit? (Asking Nikhil Seth? )
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9, 2012 (IPS) - When the heavily hyped three-day U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) comes to a close in Rio de Janeiro Jun. 22, what would be the yardstick to measure its successes and failures?
Iran, Voice of the UN’s ‘Committee on Information’ (Did China's Sha Zukang had a hand on this one?)
It’s quite perverse enough that the United Nations would have a so-called Committee on Information whose members include such censorship-loving regimes as those of Belarus, China, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Syria.
That alone would suggest it’s time to disband this committee, which is charged with steering UN “public information policies and activities” – a task that according to the committee’s web site includes being “responsible for overseeing the work of the Department of Public Information and for providing it guidance on policies, programmes and activities of the Department.” The question is not only what kind of policy guidance such despotisms as North Korea, Syria or China might contribute to UN information programs and activities. The further question for the UN is what kind of insane farce of an “information” committee would stoop to dignify the likes of the governments of North Korea, Syria, China, or the rest of this caboodle of despotisms, with membership?
Rio+20 Earth summit: leaked draft reveals conflict among countries
UN's vision for one deal to save the Earth is in peril as countries bicker over phrasing of clauses and key terms in the draft text
• Read the UN draft text here
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Brazil expands conservation areas
Brasilia - Brazil announced on Tuesday it planned to protect an
additional 10 000km² of land and pledged not to let economic woes stop
it from implementing other measures to protect the environment.
According to the Environment Ministry, the country's total surface area under preservation - including reservations for indigenous people - would increase to 770 000km² under decrees signed by President Dilma Rousseff just days before the start of Rio+20, a United Nations summit on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro.
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Brazil-expands-conservation-areas-20120606
According to the Environment Ministry, the country's total surface area under preservation - including reservations for indigenous people - would increase to 770 000km² under decrees signed by President Dilma Rousseff just days before the start of Rio+20, a United Nations summit on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro.
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Brazil-expands-conservation-areas-20120606
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