Felix Dodds

Felix Dodds

Dodds in 2002
Born Derby, England
Occupation Author
Nationality United Kingdom
Notable works Plain Language Guide to Rio+20',From Rio+20 to the New Development Agenda,One Only Earth: The Long Road via Rio to Sustainable Development, How to Lobby at Intergovernmental Meetings: Mine is a Café Latte, Human and Environmental Security, Climate Change and Energy Insecurity, Earth Summit 2002 and Into the Twenty First Century
Website
felixdodds.net

Felix Dodds is an author, futurist and activist. He has been instrumental in developing new modes of stakeholder engagement with the United Nations, particularly within the field of sustainable development. Mr. Dodds was the Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future from 1992–2012. He is probably best known as the author of How to Lobby at Intergovernmental Meetings: Mine is a Café Latte, written with co-author Michael Strauss.

Dodds' most recent book, The Water, Food, Energy and Climate Nexus takes up the themes of three of his other books on human and environmental security/. The 2013 book From Rio+20 to the New Development Agenda written with Jorge Laguna Celis and Liz Thompson is the companion book to Only One Earth – The Long Road via Rio to Sustainable Development written with Michael Strauss and Maurice Strong the books look at the Rio+20 process and outcomes and the last forty years and the challenges for the future. His previous books include Biodiversity and Ecosystem Insecurity edited with Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf UN Convention on Biological Diversity Executive Secretary this is a companion book to Climate Change and Energy Insecurity edited volume with Andrew Higham and Richard Sherman and Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change they argue that the new paradigm facing the world is the interface between environmental, human, economic security considerations. Dodds argues that this is due to the failure of developed countries to deliver on promises made during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the 2002 World Summit in Johannesburg.

Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change was nominated for the International Studies Association Sprout Award in 2006 for the most significant publication in the field of environmental studies.[1] In 2010 Green Eco Services listed him as one of the twenty five environmentalists ahead of their time .

He has two children Robin Dodds and Merri Dodds.

Early years

Felix Dodds was influenced at an early age by the visions of Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Dodds went on to study physics at the University of Surrey, where he was very active in student politics. He contributed much of his time to the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Surrey Students Union, for which he served as Deputy President between 1977 and 1978. After university, Dodds went on to teach mathematics and physics, first at the Khartoum International Community School, and then in London at the Harlington Community School .

Political work (1980–1990)

Early in his career, Felix Dodds was active in UK politics and involved himself with the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Anti-Nazi League. Dodds simultaneously began to engage with environmental issues such as acid rain, nuclear power and ozone depletion. He held numerous positions in the Liberal Party between 1983 and 1987, and became chairman of the party's "young wing" – the National League of Young Liberals (NLYL) – in 1985.

Dodds was a key instigator in the rebellion against the SDP-Liberal Alliance leadership of David Steel and David Owen over the issue of an independent nuclear deterrence. The rebel alliance produced the publication Across the Divide: Liberal Values on Defence and Disarmament, which outlined the Liberal Party's historic opposition to the UK having an independent nuclear deterrent. This resulted in a major defeat to the leadership in 1986, by twenty-three votes at the Liberal Party Conference defence debate in Eastbourne.[2]

After serving the NLYL, Dodds published his first book, Into the Twenty-First Century: An Agenda for Political Realignment. His work called for closer co-operation between Green members on the left in British politics. Contributors to the book included: Jonathon Porritt, Jean Lambert MEP, Peter Hain MP, Simon Hughes MP, Michael Meadowcroft MP, Sara Parkin, Petra Kelly Green MP in Germany, Jeremy Seabrook, Peter Tatchell and Hilary Wainwright. In 1988, Dodds co-founded Green Voice, which worked for two years to create a dialogue between Green members on the left of UK politics.

Leadership at the UN (1990–present)

Since 1990, Felix Dodds has been active within the United Nations network, originally as Director of the United Nations Environment and Development, UK Committee (UNED-UK). This organisation evolved into the UNED-Forum, eventually leading to its successor organisation, Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future. These organisations played a critical role in mobilising support for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 and Rio+20 in 2012. In the months leading up to the highly publicised meeting, Stakeholder Forum's Earth Summit web site[3] was used by stakeholders as the primary non-UN online resource. For the Rio+20 conference Stakeholder Forum played a role as a major partner to the UN to engage stakeholders in the conference. It again had the major non UN web site Earth Summit web site[4] for stakeholders.

In 2000, Dodds' book, Earth Summit 2002: A New Deal, outlined many of the key issues for the Summit two years before it occurred.

Dodds has co-founded global Non-governmental organisation coalitions for a number of United Nations processes, including the annual United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD), the 1996 UN-HABITAT II Conference, and the 1999 World Health Organization Health and Environment Conference in London.

Dodds co-chaired the NGO coalition at the UN CSD from 1997 to 2001, and is credited with proposing to the UN General Assembly in 1996 the introduction of Stakeholder Dialogues at the United Nations. Dodds has played a pivotal role in their development since that time, and is a keen advocate for the involvement of stakeholders in the decision making process and implementation of global agreements. He has argued that we are in a process of transition from representative democracy – Madison democracy[5] to a participatory democracy – Jeffersonian Democracy. Dodds contends that at present we are in a period of stakeholder democracy, and trying, at various levels within society, to develop the structures, vocabulary and institutions to embed this phase. He firmly believes that such developments will strengthen world democracy.

Since 2004, Dodds has been actively working on the emerging agenda of human and environmental security. His book, Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change, produced with Tim Pippard of Jane's Information Group, outlines the critical issues of this new agenda. Dodds argues that, due to the failure of donor governments to fund the agendas stemming from summits at Rio and Johannesburg, many environmental issues are now becoming security dilemmas.

He has held a number of positions including: Member of the Green Globe Task Group to advice the Foreign Secretary on issues of sustainable development; Member of International Advisory Board for 'Down to Earth – sustainable consumption in the 21st Century; Member of the Board of the Montreal International Forum;The Co-Chair International Steering Committee for Rio+8; Member of the International Advisory Board for the 2001 Bonn Freshwater Conference; A Commissioner of the Commission on Globalisation; A Member of the International Steering Committee for the Conference Hilltops to Oceans; A Bremen Partnership Award Judge; Member of the Advisory Group for the 2006 Basque Sustainable Development Conference; Member of the G8 (Russian Government) International Advisory Council of Non-governmental Organizations.

Dodds has, in the past, advised the European Union,the governments of Denmark and the UK at intergovernmental events. Dodds also served as an advisor on civil society to the Russian Government for the 2006 G8 Summit. From 2006 to 2007, he was a member of the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook 4 Outreach Advisory Committee and is a former board member of the Montreal International Forum.

He was selected by the United Nations Department for Public Information (DPI) and NGOs to chair the 64th NGO Conference in 2011 UN DPI Conference on "Sustainable Societies; Responsive Citizens" (Rio+20). He was part of a number of advisory boards for Rio+20 these include the global scientists conference in 2012 Planet Under Pressure, the German Government sponsored conference Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus in the Green Economy and the Government of Abu Dhabi sponsored conference Eye on Earth Summit framework committee and stakeholder advisory committee.

Current positions

Jason Rothberg (left), Felix Dodds (centre), and Donovan (right) chat at a benefit for Race for Tomorrow.

Felix Dodds is an International Ambassador for the City of Bonn. He is a senior fellow of the Global Research Institute and a Senior Affiliate of the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina and an associate fellow at the Tellus Institute in Boston and was co-director of the Nexus 2014: Water, Energy, Food and Climate Conference. He advises a number of organisations working on the post 2015 development goals. He is a writer and was for twenty years Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future from 1992 to 2012 and is a member of the UN Habitat World Urban Campaign Steering Committee and is President of Amber Valley Liberal Democrats.

He is a member of the expert advisory committee for the Global Initiative for Sustainability Rating, a member of the Council of Advisers for the Collaborative Institute for Oceans, Climate and Security and a member of the advisory boards for the A Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Medio Ambiente, The Widening Circle and the Planetary Boundaries Initiative . He has a semi-regular column, 'Food for Thought' in the Stakeholder Forum newsletter Outreach which is published daily at UN meetings such as the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and UNFCCC.He is an occasional writer for the BBC's web site, and has taken up blogging at international film festivals and twittering.

Works

References

External links

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