Archive

Beyond the Limits: Implementing a resilient future

Uni-Bastions, Auditorium B106, 26th November 2013, 18.30 - 20.00

The publication of Limits to Growth and the first United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, in 1972, have become milestones for Global Environmental Policy. Forty years later, a new report to the Club of Rome, and documents for the Rio+20 Conference, depict a world facing huge challenges. Effective responses have been rare!

Are current challenges too complex to be addressed? Does this imply there are misunderstandings? Or is there a lack of institutional capacity to address these challenges using a multi-level governance regime? Can resilience serve as a creative framework for more effective responses at local, national and international levels.

 

Photo: ORBISSWISS

Ian Johnson

Secretary General of the Club of Rome, former Vice-President for Sustainable Development at the World Bank

Per Olsson

Head of the Initiative on Innovation and Transformation in Socio-Ecological Systems, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Flyer of the conference

 


 

 

RIO+20: Challenges, Opportunities and Responses

Uni-Dufour, Geneva, 10th May 2012 

20 years after the 1992 Earth Summit, The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development will be held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012. This conference, known as Rio+20, will focus mainly on promoting a green economy and reforming the institutional framework for sustainable development.

There are numerous challenges and the international community faces increasing difficulties to reach common agreements to take action, as illustrated by the effective implementation of the Kyoto protocol. Rio+20 is a unique opportunity to redefine a global framework for action, through institutional reforms, enabling a green economy and defining Sustainable Development Goals.

Are these responses at the level of the challenges? The speakers will exchange their perspectives on issues that are increasingly treated along the “North-South” divide and give insights about what the world can expect from the Rio+20 conference.

 

Daniel ZIEGERER

Daniel Ziegerer is acting Head of Global Affairs at the Federal Environment Office in Switzerland. Before that he was a Senior Policy Adviser at the International Affairs Division of the Swiss Office for the Environment. He coordinates the involvement and activities of the Swiss Government with UNEP and with the CSD and represents his government in international conferences and negotiations on environmental matters. Before joining the Swiss Office for the Environment, Daniel Ziegerer worked as Policy Adviser for the Peruvian Society for Environmental Law (SPDA) in its Biodiversity and International Affairs Programme and for the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in its Economic Development Cooperation Division.

 

Dr Sarah COOK

Dr Sarah Cook is Director of UNRISD since 2009. She moved to UNRISD from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, UK, where she had been a Research Fellow since 1996. She also worked for the Ford Foundation as Programme Officer for Governance and Public Policy from 2000-2005. Ms. Cook received her PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.

Poster of the conference

Presentation of Daniel Ziegerer

Presentation of Sarah Cook

 


 

October 28th 2010: Public Conference for the launch of UNIGE-UNEP new executive programmes

Social Impacts of Major Global and Regional Environmental Changes

People on the Move: Impacts of Climate Change on Human Well-being
(Public Conference | October 28th 2010 | University of Geneva)

Prof. Michael OPPENHEIMER, IPCC & Princeton University, USA 
Dr Koko WARNER, United Nations University, Bonn, Germany

 

Conference Flyer

Climate Change and Human Migration (M. Oppenheimer)

Environmental Change and Migration: The Evidence (K. Warner)