Post event note:

UN meetings on the first year of SDG implementation are over now, were very intense, and in the end quite successful for finding a new way to discuss the neglected issue of natural limits.   The scientific community that understands the connection between our natural limits and economic growth has been totally shut out of the UN discussion for years.   I didn’t get to speak to the main body on that directly, but I finally found a way to talk about the problem, that the SDG’s don’t in any real way count the global impacts of our decisions:

S D   M e t r i c s   L e a v e   M o s t   S o c i e t a l   I m p a c t s   U n c o u n t e d  

It’s to say:

The ISO’s world environmental accounting standards
fail to honor its fiduciary duty to our interests and human right to honest data,
only counting local impacts, leaving all global impacts of financial decisions uncounted and unaccountable.
SD decision makers are the most hurt, kept from knowing most of what they are deciding.

____________

The 17 Goals

It had seemed I would have a chance to speak at the UN, officially representing the long neglected interests  of the scientific community that understands the coupling of the economy and natural limits.  Below is the email I sent a number of scientists and other experts who understanding is not being represented:

Friends,

I found a way for scientists who have long understood natural limits, to get official representation at the UN, in the UN’s community of CSO’s (Civil Society Organizations), as a member of its “Major Groups and Other Stakeholders” (MGoS).    The present work is the review and guidance of the UN’s global Sustainable Development Goals project (SDG’s), and the High Level Political Forum’s (HLPF) oversight of it.   https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/hlpf

Please circulate widely.  Non-expert members welcome too.   There is no organization at this time, just me seeing an opportunity to have our long neglected interests given official recognition.  I might start a Google Group with the names or something…  Any statement would be in the interests of the group rather than as if representing a group position

The draft text for representing the group’s interest to the UN is is here.

Time was too short for it to get around, and response was slow, except for the two  great ones I really appreciate getting, so I turned off the Google invitation form .   It still seems to be something that community really should find a way to do though!

Jessie