Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy

Felix Dodds is an Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina (UNC) and an Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute. He was the co-director of the 2014 and 2018 Nexus Conference on Water, Food, Energy and Climate. In 2019, he was a candidate for the Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). He is the UNC lead PI on the Belmont Forum grant on Disaster Risk Reduction and Resilience. He has written or edited over 21 books, and his last book was Tomorrow’s People and New Technologies: Changing How We Live Our Lives. His other books have included the Vienna Café Trilogy which chronicles sustainable development at the international level. He co-wrote the first Only One Earth with the father of Sustainable Development Maurice Strong and Michael Strauss, the second From Rio+20 to the New Development Agenda with Jorge Laguna Celis and Ambassador Liz Thompson and the last one Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals with Ambassador David Donoghue and Jimena Leiva Roesch. Felix was the Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future from 1992 to 2012. He played a significant role in promoting multi-stakeholder dialogues at the United Nations and proposed to the UN General Assembly the introduction of stakeholder dialogue sessions at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development. In 2011, Felix was listed as one of 25 environmentalists ahead of his time. Also, in 2011 he chaired the United Nations DPI 64th NGO conference – ‘Sustainable Societies Responsive Citizens’ which put forward the first set of indicative Sustainable Development Goals. From 1997 to 2001, he co-chaired the UN Commission on Sustainable Development NGO Steering Committee. Chris Spence is a writer and environmentalist. He has worked internationally on sustainable development, conservation, climate change and health policy, and he held leadership positions at non-profit organizations in New York, New Zealand and California. He also consulted widely for the United Nations, IUCN-World Conservation Union and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and he has undertaken assignments in more than 40 countries on five continents, focused, in particular, on climate change and sustainable development policy and practice, as well as international law. He has also served as a political advisor and journalist and been on the boards of several environmental organizations. An award-winning writer, Chris is the author or co-author of several books, including Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and Rock Happy (2021). He holds MA (Hons) and BA degrees in Political Science and History from Victoria University. Originally from the United Kingdom, Chris lived in New Zealand, New York, and the San Francisco Bay Area before moving to Ireland in 2020, where he currently lives with his family.

1. Protecting Our Habitats: The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands - Luc Hoffman 2. Safeguarding Our Oceans: The IWC Whaling Moratorium – Sydney Holt 3. Protecting the Ozone Layer: The Montreal Protocol – Mostafa Tolba 4. The Rio Earth Summit 1992 and Rio+20 – Maurice Strong (1992) and Maria Luiza Viotti (2012) 5. Climate Change: The Kyoto Protocol and Paris Accords – Raul Oyuela Estrada, President Obama and Christiana Figueres 6. Convention on Biological Diversity—Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety: Juan Mayr 7. Chemicals and Hazardous Waste: The Minamata Convention on Mercury – Franz Perrez 8. Sustainable Development Goals – Paula Caballero 9. Conclusion