Collecting inputs for the Bonn2011 Nexus Conference preparatory process

The question of how to effectively use our water resources has been debated for decades, yet what we need more than ever is direct action at the field level.

A message from Felix Dodds, Executive Director of the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future and International Steering Committee (ISC) Member

Tens of millions of new jobs can be created around the world in the next two decades if green policies are put in place to switch the high-carbon economy to low-carbon, the UN has said.

Masdar, for the first time, will be discussing energy, water and hunger issues under one umbrella during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW) from January 13 to 17, it said on Tuesday. Earlier this year, during the Rio +20 Earth Summit in Brazil, it had announced its plans to organise the ADSW. Offering further details, Masdar CEO Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said: “The week builds on the momentum created at the Rio+20, particularly in advancing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will guide the sustainability agenda for the next 20 years.”

Environment secretary says it’s time to shatter the myth that you can’t be green and growing – The clouds may be gathering around the Rio +20 Earth Summit next week with walkouts marring last-minute talks, the negotiating text remaining a mess of brackets and clauses, commentators convinced the summit will end as a damp squib, and the row over David Cameron’s refusal to attend refusing to die down.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have become a contentious proposal among Member States that are currently negotiating the outcome document for Rio+20. Member States and the international community are looking for the successors of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which will expire in 2015. The current framework helped the international community to rally behind a common understanding of poverty eradication, and it provided targets and indicators to guide policy decisions. However, the MDGs overemphasised economic poverty and gave limited attention to the structural causes of poverty or to sustainable development.

The Water-energy-food nexus (or other permutations) is increasingly finding itself in the public discourse surrounding development and sustainability. It is a concept that is easy to understand on the face of things, yet like a ball of wool unravels itself into a myriad of complex and dynamic relationships. In fact some have long studied some of the components in detail, such as water use for agriculture and use of crops for bioenergy. And yet despite the fact that these three resources are amongst the most important resources for human survival, the attention they have received as a single interdependent issue has been inadequate. – This is of interest to me in particular because my research is based around the water-energy nexus. Indeed, there is an aspect of food/agriculture in there too, which would be more prominent if the UK aimed to source all of its food from the UK … I digress.