What are your opinions on the UN’s discussion paper?

The “Proposed Input to CSD on a 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production” is now available for public comment. We’ve been waiting months for this document. The final version will be presented in 2010 to the first of a two-year debate at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD), which will hopefully result in a global, intergovernmental agreement on various “programmes” supporting our national and regional efforts to address this huge challenge. (You can download this and other papers from the Marrakech NGO Forum website.)

Interested bodies are encouraged to read the document and send your comments to the UN. However, if you would like to see your ideas and opinions discussed more widely, please post them as comments to this blog. This is one of the primary purposes of this blog — to encourage discussion and public input into the UN debate on the “10 Year Framework of Programmes.”

Knowing that this important discussion and the results can easily get bogged down in bureaucratic rhetoric and technical/in-group jargon, let us try to side step this uninspiring swamp and keep our feet on a more solid path. We all have a long way to go and a lot is at stake. Most of all, we must not lose sight of the fact that changing production and consumption patterns is one of the essential requirements for this century, if our world is avoid the social and environmental catastrophes now looming ahead, not to mention the need and responsibility to clean up this current mess.

So, please share your opinions on this blog and let’s see where we can take this!

Jeffrey Barber, Executive Director
Integrative Strategies Forum