What are your opinions on the UN’s discussion paper?
September 22, 2008 at 10:23 pm 1 comment
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
Entry filed under: Policy Recommendations. Tags: .
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Sylvia Lorek | December 11, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Dear Colleague,
the following comments were sent to UNEP, UN DESA and the German Co-chair of the Marrakech Process Advisory Commettee on behalf of Forum Environment and Development Germany:
We like to express our serious concerns about the speed and level of ambition of the proposed 10 Year Framework of Programmes for Sustainable Consumption and Production and the related Background Document.
The strongest international policy efforts currently focus mainly on mitigating the effects of rapid global economic growth (e.g. the Kyoto Protocol and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.). It is obvious though, that the drivers behind such problems are the way how mankind has organized its economic system of production and consumption.
The Marrakech Process, CSD 2010/11 and the 10 YFP are quite likely the unique opportunity at the international level to address the unsustainable development of our consumption and production in a systemic way. Therefore proposed SCP programmes should foster a radical reduction in environmental impacts per unit welfare, and be supportive to reduction of the poverty gap.
The background paper emphasis quite well the holistic dimension and the need of a systemic challenge towards sustainable consumption and production patterns which include “addressing institutions and paradigms that hinder change”. Still none of the two papers –
nor the Marrakech Process in general – develop tactics to analyze and to overcome the resistance to chance. Instead efforts are restricted to identify best practice examples and promoting win-win solutions. These activities are certainly necessary to enable more sustainable lifestyles. Still they are not sufficient. UNEP, the CSD institutions and other relevant UN bodies have to provide guidance for the implementation of SCP on the regional, national and local level.
Therefore we recommend:
1) The Framework has to take up Agenda Setting activities providing a platform to address necessary changes which countervail existing meta-values and meta-trends in society.
The Background Paper introduced a mapping exercise pointing out that most activities and programmes on SCP focus on information/clearing house, awareness raising, and capacity building. Scientific as well as practical insights clearly indicate that these informational instruments are not sufficient to make a difference. Instead economic and regulatory incentives proved to work. Therefore we recommend:
2) The review of progress in the implementation of commitments, targets and goals related to sustainable consumption and production as foreseen for the first year of the CSD cycle 2010/11 should not be limited to compilations of best practices on SCP and case studies. Additionally it needs a review of the failure of implementing effective
instruments, its reasons, and strategies how to overcome these failures.
According to the proposed input paper, the “main objective of the 10YFP [is] promoting social and economic development within the carrying capacity of ecosystems”. It further on states: the 10YFP based on the principle to be voluntary, flexible, not prescriptive and
demand driven. We are seriously concerned about the lacking awareness of urgency. The orientation of the 10YFP has to be to meet ecological and social necessities. Therefore we recommend:
3) The proposed declaration on SCP has to include the formulation of clear sustainability targets for sustainable consumption, e.g. on resource use and climate gas emissions. The 10 YFP is part of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. Implementation was requested in 2002 already and the weak wording in the documents does not indicate any substantial progress. In Agenda 21 already governments agreed that each country should “develop a national policy framework on sustainable production and consumption.” Yet more than 15 years later only a few governments have even begun this process. If governments’ are not held accountable for their previous commitments, there is no need to develop new ones.
Therefore we recommend:
4) The Framework has to prepare a binding commitment to develop national policy frameworks on sustainable production and consumption. It also has to enable developments towards legal frameworks and multilateral agreements to ensure the actions taken indeed effect sustainability in practice. In general the suggested programmes indicate a useful direction what to concentrate on. Still the way the Framework is presented raise the impression of developing into a funding mechanism for existing institutions, networks, etc. Too much time has been spent already on talking about action.
Therefore we recommend:
5) The Framework for Action should be prepared by 2010 in a way that implementation could start immediately after the adoption.