Category: UN Commission on Sustainable Development

The UN Commission on Sustainable Development was established in 1992 following the Earth Summit (which also launched the “Rio Conventions” on Climate Change, Biodiversity, and to Combat Desertification). Its goal is to follow the progress on the implementation of Agenda 21 (a plan of action from the Earth Summit) and the Rio Declaration.
You can learn more about it’s structure here.

The Road to Rio+20

Nathan Thanki June 2, 2012 0 Comments

by Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler In less than a month Rio+20 will begin. Government delegations from nearly every country in the world will arrive in the RioCentro put on their translation headsets and try to find common ground on the future of humankind’s place in the environment. Thousands of people will flood the streets for the People’s Summit – which promises to foster an alternative,...

El Color de la Economía

COA Admin May 31, 2012 0 Comments

por Khristian Méndez // Tendemos a adherir la palabra “Verde” al nombre de productos para caracterizarlos como(de) “Ecológicos” o más amigables con el medio ambiente, y promoverlos como tales. Esta verdad aplica también a la Economía Verde. La idea de una “Economía Verde” fue creada como respuesta a la crisis ambiental que muchas personas e instituciones alrededor del mundo aún...

A Plea to Paul Kingsnorth: Don’t withdraw; re-draw. Join us in Rio.

Nathan Thanki May 23, 2012 22 Comments

by nathan thanki One busy day in March I received an email from a biology, conservation and ecology professor at COA. Attached to the message was a link to an article by Paul Kingsnorth from the February edition of Orion Magazine, entitled “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist.” I opened the link to have no more than a glance, but instead spent the next hour and a half reading,...

A Reminder of Reality

jvelez March 28, 2012 0 Comments

By Julian Velez This is a reflection of my time in the Sustainable Development negotiations that took place in New York City. These negotiations are called the “informal-informal negotiations”; they are a build up to the Rio+20 summit. I speak of Food Sovereignty as a refreshing term that contrasts with the concepts and environment that is present in this UN process. I find the process of the...

The Future We Really Want: The Why, and What

COA Admin March 23, 2012 0 Comments

By: The Informal-informals Team Earth in Brackets has critically examined the history of sustainable development negotiations, outcome documents, and implementation, and has found it to be, with the exception of small gains made in the implementation of Agenda 21, uninspiring. Current institutions under the UN lack the coherence, jurisdiction and consistency to fully address issues of...