The United Nations Secretary-General is moving ahead with his reforms within the UN Secretariat. After achieving gender balance in all his senior appointments, he has now reorganised the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, responsible for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals.
Two members of the International Environment Forum, Maja Groff and Arthur Dahl, together with Augusto Lopez-Claros, submitted a proposal to reform the UN Charter to the New Shape Prize competition organized in 2017 by the Global Challenges Foundation. The proposal was one of 14 finalists invited to Stockholm, Sweden, on 25-30 May 2018, for the New Shape Forum and final judging for the US$ 1.8 million New Shape Prize, and came in first.
Bonn, Germany, 6 May 2018
On 15 February, I gave a TEDx talk at the Institut National Polytechnique: École Nationale Supérieure d’Électrotechnique, d’Électronique, d’Informatique, d’Hydraulique et des Télécommunications (INP ENSEEIHT), Université de Toulouse, France, on the topic "Information: private property or public good?". The full series of TEDx talks that day in French can be seen on YouTube at TEDxINPENSEEIHT.
The 23rd annual Justice Conference was held at the de Poort Conference Centre in the Netherlands on 30 March-2 April 2018. The International Environment Forum (IEF) previously partnered with the Justice Conference as its annual conference in 2017 (https://iefworld.org/conf21), so a number of IEF members were present again this year, including Iko Congo, Arthur Dahl, Maja Groff (conference organizer), Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen, Wendi Momen, Halldor Thorgeirsson, and David Willis. A side discussion on IEF over dinner allowed us to recruit some new members.
by Christine Muller
https://www.storyofstuff.org/faith-based/
How are materialism and consumerism issues of justice? And how can we help our youth to understand the abstract concept of materialism and its numerous detrimental impacts?
International Environment Forum Contribution to the Talanoa Dialogue
United Nations Climate Change input for COP24
19 March 2018
Topic: How do we get there?
Objective: Wider partnerships in public education about climate change
https://unfccc.int/documents/65320 or
https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/10_IEF_Contribution_Tal…
SUMMARY: It is easier for government to increase ambition if they have public support. Public education about climate change should combine scientific and ethical perspectives to motivate action, as demonstrated by a decade of experience with interfaith climate change courses available on line. In Vanuatu, a climate change course was prepared for use in rural training centres around the archipelago. Governments should partner with a wide range of stakeholders to spread values-based education about the science and ethics of climate change and to encourage practical actions everyone can take to build community resilience.
On 14 March 2018, the United States national Bahá'í council wrote to all the members of the American Bahá'í community, as they have every year since 2011, encouraging their participation in Faith Climate Action Week, sponsored by Interfaith Power and Light.
