Felix Dodds, former executive director of the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future, will deliver a lecture titled “The Emerging Role of Water in the Global Climate Negotiations” at 5:30 p.m. on March 27 in the fourth floor conference room of the FedEx Global Education Center.
This lecture will focus on the difficulty of bringing water to the forefront of global negotiations on climate change, and the role that water plays throughout the process of migration and adaptation. Dodds will also discuss the increasing challenges to water availability in the future.
Dodds has written or edited numerous books on the subject of sustainability. His most recent book, “Only One Earth – The Long Road via Rio to Sustainable Development,” (Routledge 2012) was co-written with Michael Strauss and Maurice Strong, a pioneer in environmental advocacy and sustainable development. The book discusses what achievements and roadblocks have occurred since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, 40 years ago.
Additionally, Dodds chaired both the 64th Annual United Nations Department of Public Information Conference titled “Sustainable Communities, Responsive Citizens,” in 2011, and the NGO Coalition on Sustainable Development at the UN from 1997 to 2001. He developed stakeholder dialogues at the UN and was recognized as one of 25 environmentalists ahead of his time in 2011.
Dodds has been acknowledged for his forward-thinking work in sustainability and the environment, having been called a “a passionate campaigner for people’s involvement in the central challenges of our time” and “a ‘thought leader’ of his age,” by Crispian Olver, former South African director general of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism.
Presented by the Global Research Institute, a UNC-Chapel Hill based center for scholarly research on global issues, the lecture will be delivered as part of the center’s Water in our World Speaker Series in conjunction with the University’s 2012-2014 campus wide theme on water. The FedEx Global Education Center is located at 301 Pittsboro St., Chapel Hill.
Published March 19, 2013.