Sustainable Development - Masterly Thoughts

Hello! I am currently studying a Master's programme in Sustainable Development. Feel free to ask questions! Be sure that I will ask many. Here I will link interesting articles and write my own ramblings. Hopefully they can enlighten some people. Looking...

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The climate broke multiple records in 2016 and extreme trends have continued in 2017, according to the World Meterological Organization.

Find out what you can do to help address climate change: http://j.mp/1BvpjPo

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There's an incredibly important meeting going on in Paris right now, if you wanna keep up with the latest news and what is going on, this is a great way of doing it.

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(via Podcast Special - Sustainable Development Part 1)

This is a special little podcast about Sustainable Development that I would be super excited if you litened to. It’s superawesome. And the best part? It’s only part one of two! Miha and I (Laura) decided to get to the bottom of what Sustainable Development actually is, and, maybe more importantly, what people think sustainable development is. We talked to both experts and other university students and each other.

We are really proud of it!

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More posts will come. But work is taking president at the moment (as it should be I guess). But in the mean time you can take a listen to this part one (of two) of a very special podcast about sustainable development. Let me know what you think, if you like it I might look in to the possibility of making a sustainable development podcast a reoccurring thing :)

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Inspirational video that highlights how we are ALL part of this important work, and that the SDGs effects all of us. We can make change happen - as long as we work together.

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So, let us start with the basics. What is the 2030 Agenda? What exactly is it that is going on right now?

The United Nations Sustainable Development Summit is happening in New York right now, and it will be happening for the next three days. It’s a meeting between world leaders where the aim is to all agree on the formulation of the 2030 Agenda and its 17 sustainable development goals and their 196 sub-targets. The meeting will take the whole weekend, but already the Agenda has been adopted, and we now have a world Agenda for the next 15 years. The Agenda will, to put it simply, dictate the approach of the UN in their work, both how they work internally and how they work with their member states and other partners. It will also have a huge impact on how countries tackle the different challenges that they are facing in everything from environmental sustainability, to education, poverty elevation and gender equality, just to mention a few.

Worth noting is that the negotiating part of the 2030 Agenda (where member states argues about if they should use this word instead of that, and other things that surprisingly will have much bigger implications than one might think) is more or less done. The draft of the goals has been negotiated and worked on since 2012 and he Rio+20 conference, and will most likely be adopted in their entirety at this stage.

The 2030 Agenda is “a plan for people, planet and prosperity that also seeks to strengthen universal peace in larger freedom”. It is at its core an integrated set of goals and targets that illustrates the interconnectedness of the “three pillars of sustainable development” (social, environmental and economic). All goals are in the formulation of their targets connected to multiple other goals, and together they create a web of targets and goals, where one cannot pull one strand without taking into consideration how it connects to other aspects of sustainable development. This creates a complicated set of goals, and the world is definitely facing a challenge in its work towards the realization of the 2030 Agenda. However, it is also our only chance to ensure that we protect not only our selves, but also the planet we live on, and that we ensure that the needs of the present is met while also ensuring that the possibility of future generations to meet their needs is safeguarded. Our actions these coming 15 years will be crucial for how life on our planet will look in the future, and there are many exciting, if challenging, things ahead of us.

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Right now we are on the speeches part of the summit - a lot of world leaders singing the praise of and highlighting importance of the 2030 Agenda and sustainable development. It’s a lot of repetitions, and a lot of reprimands for people going over the 5 minute time limit. BUT it is also very interesting. You can watch it with me by following the below link:  

http://webtv.un.org/

Later today I’ll make a post going into more detail about the 2030 Agenda, for those of you who might not be up to date and who wish to know more about what is actually being discussed in New York in the comming days.

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UN Web TV is available 24 hours a day with selected live programming of United Nations meetings and events as well as with pre-recorded video features and documentaries on various global issues.

So today the meeting in the UN headquarters in New York starts that aims at adopting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It would be a little strange if this blog didn’t talk at all about this exciting thing. So talk about it we will. Starting with sharing the link to the UN site where you can see live broadcasts from the meeting. Exciting huh? Stay tuned for more interesting posts!

/Laura

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Safari in the Mara pt 2!

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Safari in the Mara pt 1 :)

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Safari time

Not really relevant, but I'm so excited because we are going to the Mara tomorrow on safari, and it's gonna be awesome. But it also got me thinking about biodiversity loss and made me a little sad. So - better enjoy it while it lasts and promote as much as possible that looking and taking care of our fellow earth inhabitants is much better than killing them off! So much more exciting as well :D pictures to come!

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Just to let you know...

I haven’t bee posting here lately, even though I have plenty of things that I could share from my first almost two months at the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi. For now I can tell you that I am having an amazing time, and I get to work directly with projects relating to implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs (I can hardly believe it myself sometimes).

The reaso I haven’t been more active here is one simple one: Tumblr and my shitty internet at home does not mix well at all, and doing tumblr stuff at work seems like a not so good idea, even if I would be posting about work related things. So posts will be coming, I just have to figure out the internet situation here first. 

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Laura

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Do vegetarians and vegans actually have an impact on how many animals are slaughtered?

Yes. A tremendous impact, actually. On the order of millions of individual animals per year.

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Good point! And it's a good way to live a more sustainable life as well - regardless of what your reasons for choosing to forego meat are.

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Adventures ahead!

I'm going to Nairobi to do an internship at UNEP, working partly with sustainable development questions. Hopefully it will result in interesting and cool stuff to post about here! Stay tuned :)

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The Weather Channel put together a really cool project talking about climate change! The best part? You can watch it all online. Learn more here: climate25.com

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Some things that we should all make sure to remember.

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(via Podcast Special - Sustainable Development Part 2!)

The second part of the podcast is up!  We are very proud of it and I would love it if you took some time and listened to it. (I would love it even more if you would take some more time afetr you are done and let me know what you think of it). We continue our discussion about sustainable development and we return to the experts to see what they are doing to work with this issue, and if they have a positive outlook on the future. Very interesting stuff indeed. 

Give it a listen and let me know what you think :)

If people like this we might make this a real podcast - there are just so many interesting things to talk about!

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Sustainable energy takes global center stage in May

As part of the UNDP's #Action2015 campaign to support their Sustainability Development Goals, May's focus was on sustainable energy.

I’m glad to see sustainable energy taking front and center this year.

[sustainabledevelopment]

(via Podcast Special - Sustainable Development Part 1)

This is a special little podcast about Sustainable Development that I would be super excited if you litened to. It's superawesome. And the best part? It's only part one of two! Miha and I (Laura) decided to get to the bottom of what Sustainable Development actually is, and, maybe more importantly, what people think sustainable development is. We talked to both experts and other university students and each other.

We are really proud of it!