Tag: tech

No more brackets, at least for now

COA Admin June 17, 2012 1 Comment
By Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler So the night before last the Brazilian government came up with a new negotiating text, and from now on they will be chairing the negotiations.  Being the host country has its perks.  The consensus seems to be that the new version isn’t terrible but it leaves out a lot of important stuff, like an Ombudperson for Future Generations. The interesting part is that the...

A Date With History (script) English and Spanish version

Nathan Thanki May 6, 2012 0 Comments
This script was writen by a group of us for a video context in preparation to the Rio+20 conference. by Anjali Appadurai, Nimisha Bastedo, Anyuri Betegon, Graham Reeder, Nathan Thanki, Julian Velez, and Trudi Zundel. The video can be seen here. We are Earth in Brackets and the future we want requires radical change. Radical: Favoring drastic political, economic, and social reforms. Radical:...

Green economy: the square ball that negotiators struggle to roll

Adrian May 3, 2012 0 Comments
by Adrian Fernandez Jauregui There is frustration and irritation revisiting, once more, the hallways and negotiating rooms of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). Despite the commonly used rhetoric about “moving forward” and “streamlining the text", progress is slow and the outcome is uncertain. In Working Group I negotiations (section three and five of the zero draft), the...

Analysis of the most recent suggested text on food security

Lara Shirley April 23, 2012 0 Comments
By Anna Odell, Clara de Iturbe and Lara Shirley We have read the Zero Order Draft, the latest version of the amended text for food security, and the co-chair's suggested text that followed it. Overall, we have found that the Co-Chairs’ suggested text is a combination of acutely incompatible and different opinions. While inevitable to a certain extent, in this case the views expressed differ to...

Belo Monstro: a first hand account of hydro-politics in Brazil

guest March 7, 2012 1 Comment
COA student Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler is currently in Altamira, Brazil, from where he sent us this dispatch. As an delegation heads off to the World Water Forum in France, this piece serves as a poignant reminder as to what is at stake in the world of hydropolitics. You can read more about Jivan's experiences on his blog.  ***** The Xingu and the dam run side by side through the social fabric of...