From the UN – May 15, 2013:

Glenn Greenwald | Why Is Boston ‘Terrorism’ but Not Sandy Hook?

Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK
Greenwald writes: “The overarching principle here should be that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is entitled to a presumption of innocence until he is actually proven guilty. As so many cases have proven … people who appear to be guilty based on government accusations and trials-by-media are often completely innocent. Media-presented evidence is no substitute for due process and an adversarial trial.”
READ MORE

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As Always, The UK Guardian has ideas for the US Legislators.

Why Does America Lose Its Head Over ‘Terror’ But Ignore Its Daily Gun Deaths?

By Michael Cohen, Guardian UK

22 April 2013

{  HERE AN UNDERSTATEMENT: }

The marathon bombs triggered a reaction that is at odds with last week’s inertia over arms control.

he thriving metropolis of Boston was turned into a ghost town on Friday. Nearly a million Bostonians were asked to stay in their homes – and willingly complied. Schools were closed; business shuttered; trains, subways and roads were empty; usually busy streets eerily resembled a post-apocalyptic movie set; even baseball games and cultural events were cancelled – all in response to a 19-year-old fugitive, who was on foot and clearly identified by the news media.

The actions allegedly committed by the Boston marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, were heinous. Four people dead and more than 100 wounded, some with shredded and amputated limbs.

But Londoners, who endured IRA terror for years, might be forgiven for thinking that America over-reacted just a tad to the goings-on in Boston. They’re right – and then some. What we saw was a collective freak-out like few that we’ve seen previously in the United States. It was yet another depressing reminder that more than 11 years after 9/11 Americans still allow themselves to be easily and willingly cowed by the “threat” of terrorism.

After all, it’s not as if this is the first time that homicidal killers have been on the loose in a major American city. In 2002, Washington DC was terrorised by two roving snipers, who randomly shot and killed 10 people. In February, a disgruntled police officer, Christopher Dorner, murdered four people over several days in Los Angeles. In neither case was LA or DC put on lockdown mode, perhaps because neither of these sprees was branded with that magically evocative and seemingly terrifying word for Americans, terrorism.

To be sure, public officials in Boston appeared to be acting out of an abundance of caution. And it’s appropriate for Boston residents to be asked to take precautions or keep their eyes open. But by letting one fugitive terrorist shut down a major American city, Boston not only bowed to outsize and irrational fears, but sent a dangerous message to every would-be terrorist – if you want to wreak havoc in the United States, intimidate its population and disrupt public order, here’s your instruction booklet.

Putting aside the economic and psychological cost, the lockdown also prevented an early capture of the alleged bomber, who was discovered after Bostonians were given the all clear and a Watertown man wandered into his backyard for a cigarette and found a bleeding terrorist on his boat.

In some regards, there is a positive spin on this – it’s a reflection of how little Americans have to worry about terrorism. A population such as London during the IRA bombings or Israel during the second intifada or Baghdad, pretty much every day, becomes inured to random political violence. Americans who have such little experience of terrorism, relatively speaking, are more primed to overreact – and assume the absolute worst when it comes to the threat of a terror attack. It is as if somehow in the American imagination, every terrorist is a not just a mortal threat, but is a deadly combination of Jason Bourne and James Bond.

If only Americans reacted the same way to the actual threats that exist in their country. There’s something quite fitting and ironic about the fact that the Boston freak-out happened in the same week the Senate blocked consideration of a gun control bill that would have strengthened background checks for potential buyers. Even though this reform is supported by more than 90% of Americans, and even though 56 out of 100 senators voted in favour of it, the Republican minority prevented even a vote from being held on the bill because it would have allegedly violated the second amendment rights of “law-abiding Americans”.

So for those of you keeping score at home – locking down an American city: a proper reaction to the threat from one terrorist. A background check to prevent criminals or those with mental illness from purchasing guns: a dastardly attack on civil liberties. All of this would be almost darkly comic if not for the fact that more Americans will die needlessly as a result. Already, more than 30,000 Americans die in gun violence every year (compared to the 17 who died last year in terrorist attacks).

What makes US gun violence so particularly horrifying is how routine and mundane it has become. After the massacre of 20 kindergartners in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, millions of Americans began to take greater notice of the threat from gun violence. Yet since then, the daily carnage that guns produce has continued unabated and often unnoticed.

The same day of the marathon bombing in Boston, 11 Americans were murdered by guns. The pregnant Breshauna Jackson was killed in Dallas, allegedly by her boyfriend. In Richmond, California, James Tucker III was shot and killed while riding his bicycle – assailants unknown. Nigel Hardy, a 13-year-old boy in Palmdale, California, who was being bullied in school, took his own life. He used the gun that his father kept at home. And in Brooklyn, New York, an off-duty police officer used her department-issued Glock 9mm handgun to kill herself, her boyfriend and her one-year old child.

At the same time that investigators were in the midst of a high-profile manhunt for the marathon bombers that ended on Friday evening, 38 more Americans – with little fanfare – died from gun violence. One was a 22-year old resident of Boston. They are a tiny percentage of the 3,531 Americans killed by guns in the past four months – a total that surpasses the number of Americans who died on 9/11 and is one fewer than the number of US soldiers who lost their lives in combat operations in Iraq. Yet, none of this daily violence was considered urgent enough to motivate Congress to impose a mild, commonsense restriction on gun purchasers.

It’s not just firearms that produce such legislative inaction. Last week, a fertiliser plant in West, Texas, which hasn’t been inspected by federal regulators since 1985, exploded, killing 14 people and injuring countless others. Yet many Republicans want to cut further the funding for the agency (OSHA) that is responsible for such reviews. The vast majority of Americans die from one of four ailments – cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease – and yet Republicans have held three dozen votes to repeal Obamacare, which expands healthcare coverage to 30 million Americans.

It is a surreal and difficult-to-explain dynamic. Americans seemingly place an inordinate fear on violence that is random and unexplainable and can be blamed on “others” – jihadists, terrorists, evil-doers etc. But the lurking dangers all around us – the guns, our unhealthy diets, the workplaces that kill 14 Americans every single day – these are just accepted as part of life, the price of freedom, if you will. And so the violence goes, with more Americans dying preventable deaths. But hey, look on the bright side – we got those sons of bitches who blew up the marathon.

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WOULD IT NOT BE IN PLACE TO CHECK THE MENTAL HEALTH OF CANDIDATES FOR THE UN SENATE?          HOW STRANGE THEIR VOTES OUGHT TO SEEM TO THE MAJORITY OF HONEST AND SANE PEOPLE OF THEIR CONSTITUENCIES?

THE FOLLOWING ARE ARTICLES THAT HINT TO THE AMOUNT OF DAMAGE CAUSED BY EASY-GET-YOUR-GUN AMERICA!

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For Wounded, Daunting Cost; for Aid Fund, Tough Decisions.

 www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/us/for…

Stan Honda/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Victims of the Boston Marathon bombings waited to be treated on April 15 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
More Photos »

By ABBY GOODNOUGH, The New York Time

Published: April 22, 2013

       Interactive Feature

4:09:43

       Photographs

Victims Remembered as Boston Suspect Is Charged

Many of the wounded could face staggering bills not just for the trauma care they received in the days after the bombings, but for prosthetic limbs, lengthy rehabilitation and the equipment they will need to negotiate daily life with crippling injuries. Even those with health insurance may find that their plan places limits on specific services, like physical therapy or psychological counseling.

Kenneth R. Feinberg, the lawyer who has overseen compensation funds for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the shootings at Virginia Tech and other disasters, arrived in Boston on Monday to start the difficult work of deciding who will be eligible for payouts from a new compensation fund and how much each person wounded in the bombings and family of the dead deserves.

The One Fund Boston, which Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston and Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts created a day after the bombings, has already raised more than $10 million for victims and their families. At the same time, friends and relatives have set up dozens of smaller funds for individual victims.

For at least 13 victims who lost limbs, including William White of Bolton, Mass., expenses may also include renovations to their homes that make it easier for them to get around.

“What if his stairs are at the wrong incline, or he needs a ramp, or the cobblestones in his backyard are uneven?” said Benjamin Coutu, a friend of the White family who helped create a donation page on a fund-raising Web site for Mr. White and his wife and son, who were also wounded in the blasts. “People who are insured in these situations think, ‘Wow, I’m O.K., I’m covered.’ It’s not until a month or two later that they realize, ‘I’m covered for the bare bones.’ ”

The overall medical costs are difficult to estimate, especially since it is not yet clear how much rehabilitation or future surgery the victims with the worst injuries will need. But as a basis for comparison, medical costs for shooting victims average about $50,000, said Ted Miller, a senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation who studies the costs of injuries.

For Mr. Feinberg, whom city and state officials asked to administer the One Fund Boston, the first task is to determine how much money is going to be available through it. Most donations typically arrive in the first month after a disaster, he said, adding that the fund-raising window should ideally be brief. “I’m a big believer, in most of these programs, that the fund should be a very small duration,” Mr. Feinberg said in a phone interview. “Because you’ve got to begin to get the money out the door to the people who really need it, and you’ve got to know how much you’re going to distribute.”

The thornier job, though, will be figuring out who qualifies for the funds and how much each victim who survived — as well as the families of the three who died — should receive. More than 170 people were wounded in the blasts, and more than 50 remain in the hospital.

Mr. Feinberg said that he would seek input from victims and their families before deciding on a formula. For victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, he said, compensation amounts were based on how long they were in the hospital. After the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., victims who were paralyzed or suffered traumatic brain injuries received just as much as the families of those who died.

“You can’t pay everyone the same if someone has a broken ankle versus a brain injury,” he said. “There’s got to be some sliding scale.”

After the shootings in Aurora, some of the hospitals who treated victims agreed to limit what they charged and to waive charges entirely. Tim Gens, executive vice president of the Massachusetts Hospital Association, said that the hospitals treating the Boston victims had not yet discussed how to handle billing, but that it would be decided case by case.

For the uninsured, Mr. Gens said, Massachusetts has a charity care fund that covers all or part of their costs, depending on their income. Each hospital also has its own policies for waiving costs in certain situations, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gens said, “For those who have insurance, there really shouldn’t be an issue.” Massachusetts requires most of its residents to have health insurance,  although a small number refuse to comply or get waivers. It is not yet clear how many of the wounded were visiting from other states, or how many were uninsured.

“Massachusetts has been the leader of ‘let’s create health insurance for everyone,’ ” said Dr. Miller of the Pacific Institute.“So it will be very interesting to see how that plays out in terms of how the costs get borne.”

Charlie Baker, a former chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, one of the state’s largest insurers, predicted that given the circumstances, most insurance companies and employers would cover as much care as victims needed, regardless of what their policy allowed.

“If, say, they have a physical therapy benefit with an annual limit of 30 visits, I just don’t see a lot of employers saying, ‘Stick to the benefit,’ ” Mr. Baker said. “They’re going to say ‘go for it’ as long as the treatment is medically helpful.”

Rich Audsley, special adviser to a committee that helped distribute $5.4 million raised for victims in Aurora, said he wished there had been enough money to cover the needs of people who were not physically injured but suffered emotional trauma from witnessing the shootings or having victims die in their arms. Mr. Audsley said that he hoped some of the One Fund Boston money would go to community agencies that can provide counseling.

“We’re talking about emotional scars for many people that will be with them for the rest of their lives,” Mr. Audsley said.

Mr. Coutu, the family friend of some victims, said that while Mr. Feinberg figures out a formula for distributing money from the larger compensation fund, smaller fund-raising efforts could provide crucial interim help. The one for the White family has raised more than $55,000 so far.

“The great thing about these sorts of micro-fundraisers is they can access the funds immediately,” Mr. Coutu said. “This is theirs.”

After the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Feinberg compensated victims’ families by calculating the likely lifetime earnings of the dead. He won praise for his handling of the fund, which was created by Congress and paid more than $7 billion in taxpayer funds to more than 5,000 survivors and families of the dead. But it was an emotionally charged process.

“When people come to see me,” he said of disaster victims and their families, “I’d be better off with a divinity degree or a degree in psychiatry.”

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From Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts:

Pincas –

It’s a calm, quiet day in Boston today. It’s difficult to believe that such horror filled our streets only a week ago.

Two times, bombs rocked the streets of Copley Square. Three lives were taken that day, and a law enforcement officer was killed just three days later. More than 260 people were wounded, many of whom remain hospitalized with amputations and other scars of tragedy.

I’ve heard from folks across the country, asking what they can do to help. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino have formed a fund to help the people most affected by these tragic events.

If you’re looking for a way to help, please consider making a donation to The One Fund Boston today.

During the Boston Marathon, everyone in our city cheers for each other. We help each other across the finish line. When terror struck, we acted as a family. Throughout the chaos, courageous people ran toward danger to help strangers in need.

Now we cry together. We pray together. We help each other.

No one can replace what we’ve lost here in Boston. But today, and in the weeks and months ahead, we’ll get through it together — through sorrow and anger, rehabilitation and recovery. That’s what families do.

The OFA family knows how to work together to accomplish amazing things. Let’s make a difference for the Boston Marathon victims.

Your donation will directly help the families who need it most.

Please make a donation now to The One Fund Boston:

my.barackobama.com/The-One-Fund

From West, Texas to Watertown, Massachusetts, we remember and honor the men, women, and children we lost last week. We help those whose lives will never be the same. And we thank our first responders, medical professionals, law enforcement officers, and National Guard for their heroic work.

I’m very proud of the people of Massachusetts for their strength, resolve, and courage. Bostonians are tough.

We are fighters — and we cannot be broken.

No matter where you live, thank you for being with us in our time of crisis and our time of healing. We run together.

Elizabeth

Elizabeth Warren
U.S. Senator, Massachusetts

From a new IISD Newsletter – “Sustainable Development in Action” (First year – Third issue).

Co-facilitators for Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals appointed.

The President of the General Assembly has appointed the Permanent Representatives of Hungary – Ambassador Csaba Korosi – and Kenya – Ambassador Macharia Kamau – as co-facilitators to prepare for the first meeting of the Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  In addition, as facilitators, the President of the General Assembly has also appointed H.E. Amb. Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti of Brazil in order to facilitate the transition from the Rio+20 or the June 2012 meeting that was run by Brazil, and Ambassador Dejan Sahovic as a Special liaison to Mr. Vuk Jeremic of Serbia – now President of the UN General Assembly. Last position before joining Mr. Jeremic in New York – Mr. Sahovic served as Ambassador of Serbia to Hungary (2008-2012)

Initially, they will facilitate consultations on the group’s leadership, agenda, and program of work and methods.

The first meeting of the OWG is currently expected to take place in mid-March 2013 -
(letter of appointment).

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In UN fashion – this process, started last Mid-June having not led to a UNGA decision at the 2012 General Assembly meeting is now being pushed to bring forward suggestions to the September 2013 UN General assembly meeting, but rather then establishing directly a committee of specialists – the above decision leads to a group of diplomats that will in turn have to bring in the specialists – thus guaranteeing the continuation of the non-functioning UN Commission on Sustainable Development, rather then replace it with a better functioning body. We tend to bet that eventually the dead CSD will be asked to show the way; above pace is a disappointment to those that thought finally there will be action at the UN on Sustainable Development.

Establishing SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals to replace the MDGs that run out in 2015, is laudable but it seems also pre-ordained that the time till 2015 is intentionally not put to good use.
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One of the main outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), held in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, was the agreement by Member States to launch a process to develop a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Rio+20 did not elaborate specific goals but stated that the SDGs should be limited in number, aspirational and easy to communicate.

The Rio+20 outcome document The Future We Want states that, at the outset, the OWG will decide on its methods of work, including developing modalities to ensure the full involvement of relevant stakeholders and expertise from civil society, the scientific community and the United Nations system in its work, in order to provide a diversity of perspectives and experience.

As someone who covered Hurricane Sandy, I’m forwarding this event to you from CUNY.  Please contact Tanya Domi for more information ~ Melissa.

Media contact:  Tanya Domi, tdomi@gc.cuny.edu, 212-817-7283

Graduate Center Launches Social Media Summit;

Hosts “Hackathon” Data Mining Training

WHAT:           “Reimagining Scholarly Communication for the 21^st Century,” including an #OccupyData Hackathon working with data mining and data visualization

WHY:             To work with a variety of New York City centric data sets on Hurricane Sandy by preparing, analyzing and visualizing data. The “Data Everywhere workshop will explore ways to open data, including how to use redundant data models that uses Virtual Private Servers and open source software.

WHO:             Jessie Daniels, professor, The Graduate Center, CUNY;

Suzanne Tamang, PhD candidate, The Graduate Center, CUNY

WHEN:           Friday, March 1^st and Saturday, March 2^nd practical exercise and training

(Data visualizations from previous Hackathons on display in the James Gallery)

WHERE:         The Graduate Center James Gallery

365 Fifth Avenue and 34^th Street, Manhattan

SPONSOR:     The Graduate Center, CUNY and JustPublics@365

Media:            Media must rsvp to Tanya Domi, Director of Media Relations at tdomi@gc.cuny.edu, 212-817-7283.

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Tanya L. Domi

Director, Media Relations

Communications and Marketing
The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016-4309

P:   212.817.7283

M:  917.733.7838

Url:  www.gc.cuny.edu

Twitter:  @gradcenternews

Australia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Bob Carr, spoke from the Island Republic of Kiribati, the Bikenikora Village, where he went to visit with President Anote Tong of the Republic of Kiribati. and prepared there a tape to be used for the Arria formula non-meeting at the UN Security Council, February 15, 2013. We made some excerpts because it presents interesting angles of what sea-rise could mean to an Island State. This is a potential clear wipe-out. A UN Member State might simply be discontinued because we emit greenhouse gasses.Just think of it.

What happens with the water area where there used to be an inhabited land? Who takes over the non-existent sunken State? What happens to the mineral and oil rights at the bottom of the former territorial waters?

How do you organize the migration of the inhabitants to another country? Do you establish training centers in the country of origin so that the incoming folks fit better into the adopting society? This is what Australia and New Zealand have to consider in their relations to Kiribati.

Let them eat hummus, with a Hebrew University breakthrough:

More lutein, less need for irrigation makes for a chickpea that may help feed millions better.

Big bowl of hummus (Photo credit: Chen Leopold/Flash 90)

 www.economist.com/news/books-and-…

China, India and climate change.

Take the lead

Emerging markets are a big part of the problem; they are essential to any solution.

Feb 2nd 2013   THE ECONOMIST FRONT PAGE ARTICLE – From the print edition

Some tricky turns up ahead

Greenprint: A New Approach to Cooperation on Climate Change. By Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian.
Centre for Global Development; 150 pages; $17.99

Buy from: Amazon.com

MOST books about the environment take the West as their starting point. This is understandable. For decades America was the world’s biggest polluter, contributing more to the problem than any other country, whereas Europe—at least in its politicians’ minds—has model environmental laws and holds plenty of righteous talks to negotiate new solutions.

But Europe and America are becoming supporting actors in the world’s climate-change drama. The lead players are China and India. China is the world’s largest emitter, contributing nearly a quarter of current global emissions. With India it accounted for 83% of the worldwide increase in carbon emissions in 2000-11. Though global warming began with industrialised countries it must end—if it is to end—through actions in developing ones. All the more reason to welcome “Greenprint”, the first book on climate change to concentrate on this growing part of the problem. Written by Aaditya Mattoo, an economist at the World Bank, and Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Centre for Global Development, the book offers an unflinching look at what one might realistically expect emerging markets to do.

From an environmentalist’s point of view, India and China elicit despair. They are obsessed with growth. To fuel it, they are building ever more coal-fired power stations, a filthy form of energy. Their cities fume. Their rivers catch fire. There is not much anyone can do about it.

But an attractive quality of this book is that it goes beyond such fatalism. The West, the authors argue, has failed to mitigate global warming, so developing countries will have to take over. This is necessary, they say, because global warming will affect developing countries more than rich ones, partly because tropical and subtropical lands are more sensitive to warming than cold or temperate ones, and partly because rich people can afford better flood controls and drought-resistant seeds than poor ones.

One estimate by William Cline, an economist, found that a rise of 2.5% in global temperatures would cut agricultural productivity by 6% in America but by 38% in India. In light of their disproportionate vulnerability, emerging giants will have to push rich countries to make more environmental compromises. To make these demands credible, they themselves will have to make some changes too.

The trouble, as the authors admit, is that emissions cuts will also be costly for China and India. Messrs Mattoo and Subramanian estimate that if the two countries were to reduce emissions by 30% by 2020 (compared with doing nothing), their manufacturing output would fall by 6-7% and their manufactured exports by more than that. As still relatively poor countries, they are less able to bear the pain.

These challenges help to explain why it is so difficult for India and China to take the lead on climate change. After considering different ways to allocate emissions cuts among nations, the authors concede that the fairest approach would be to allow developing countries to consume as much energy as rich ones did during their own industrial revolutions. But if the aim is to limit the rise in global temperatures to two degrees, which most scientists think necessary, this would allow developing-country emissions to rise by 200% whereas rich-country emissions would have to fall by an amount that is politically inconceivable.

The authors supply more reasonable solutions. They reckon that China and others could and should invest more in new technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, in order to boost improvements in clean energy. They also provide a detailed and convincing case for rich countries to put a price on carbon by introducing a modest border tax on imports from developing countries.

The book does not quite provide the promised “greenprint” for developing countries to reduce emissions. But that would be a tall order. As a first stab at analysing one of the world’s most intractable problems, it provides a wealth of analysis and fuel for thought.

What are the prospects for United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon’s second term?
How will Korea exercise its two-year term on the UN Security Council?
And what of the new Global Green Fund, founded within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be based in Korea’s Songdo/Incheon?

Michèle Griffin of UN Policy Planning,
ROK Deputy Permanent Representative, Ambassador Shin Dong-ik,
and UNSG Climate Change Support Team’s Frank Schroeder
address each of these areas in this special seasonal kick-off Studio Korea session.

The United Nations and Korean Leadership

with

Michèle Griffin
Policy Planning Unit Director, United Nations

Frank Schroeder
Senior Advisor, Climate Change Support Team, Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Ambassador Shin Dong-ik
ROK Deputy Permanent Representative, United Nations

Moderated by Dr. Stephen Noerper
Senior Vice President, The Korea Society

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We learned the following:

THE UN SECRETARY GENERAL HOLDS 5 TOPICS AS MOST IMPORTANT FOR THE TIME OF HIS SECOND TERM IN OFFICE –

(1) Sustainable Development and Climate Change. . . . This Because We Are Increasingly Aware of the Limits For the Global Natural Resources.

(2) More Preventively Minded. . . .  This by Building Up the Resilience of the Fragile Countries i.e. Natural Disasters and Conflicts – like Mali and Somalia. Think Long Term and Push Politicians.

(3) The Peace and Security Agenda. . . . Mali, Syria, DPRK. We Must Do More for the Cases we Failed to Prevent. The UN is just One of Many Actors
i.e. The African Union.

(4) Transitions towards Democracy at Large. Democracy Like the Start of the Arab Spring. Economy Like in Myanmar.

(5) Promoting The Participation of Women and Promoting the Opposition to Violence Against Women. Bring in the Voice of Young People.

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Michele Griffin, of UN Policy Planing in the Secretariat, stressed that Korea brings in something of a MIDDLE POWER. It is not one of the BRICS but it is well ahead of Developing Countries.

In this context it is important to realize that the World is changing and shifting away from the Western Countries to some of the Middle Powers, and we need to have a greater number of such actors. These Middle Powers can start thinking now of the UN as their UN, said Michele Griffin.

She added that Migration, Climate Change, are problems that were brought up by the West, and in order to tackle them the West needs the Middle Powers on-board. We figure on our Website that besides Korea, to this group belong now Indonesia, Turkey and Mexico.

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Ambassador Shin Dong-ik, Deputy Permanent Representative of Korea to the UN reminded us that Korea will chair the UN Security Council during the month of February 2013, and will have in its turn a second month of chairmanship later on.

He also reminded us that the Republic of Korea joined the UN only in 1991 – that was when both Koreas were accepted in one agreed upon move.

He stressed that his country does not want to be held hostage to this sort of balanced steps involving North Korea. Korea is one of 5 members of the Council that signed the Syrian document. This means Korea wants to go global and it includes an aspiration for nuclear disarmament.

At the UN Security Council – most of the agenda – over 70% – involves Africa.

He repeated that Sustainable Development and UN Women are issues very close to the UNSG and to the Republic of Korea as well. Korea was for Human Rights in Myanmar and for Women Rights.

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Frank Schroeder of the Climate Change support team in the UN Secretariat, addressed the topic of Green Climate Fund established recently in Inchon, and intent in mobilizing $100 Billion by 2020 to be used in creating the momentum on Climate Change. It is not fully operationalized yet. When Korea became host to the plenary, by consensus, Korea’s argument was that CC is not only a challenge, but also rather an opportunity to create growth.
Korea has become a key player on technology. Incheon is a very special place – a city of the future – wired for advanced technologies.

Korea was a bridge between the Developed & Developing World. The Fund’s Board will have ti create a business model and decide on the role of the private sector.

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On January 22nd 2013, the UN Secretary General addressed the General Assembly – spoke about the achievements in 2012 and his hopes for 2013.
He mentioned the eight priorities the UNGA has set for the UN: Sustainable Development, Peace and Security, Human Rights, Humanitarian Assistance, Disarmament, Justice, the Develpment of Africa, Drug Control, Crime Prevention, and Combating Terrorism.

He followed up by saying that his hope is that “we can stop moving from crisis to crisis, from symptom to sympton, and instead address the underlying causes and inter-relationships, and recognize the flaws in many of our approaches.” He called on removal of the “Tyranny of the Status Quo” that constitutes “the brake on our common progress.”

The UNSG declared the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development as an important step forward. That was followed by the December meeting in Doha that he said put climate change negotiations back on track. We wonder about that but hope that he can hold to his promise to engage world leaders individually and collectively next year to mobilize political will for a robust, global and legally binding climate change instrument by 2015.

With the UNSG and President Obama singing from the same page on the issue of Climate Change, we thus hope that finally something can be achieved in the future, though we are skeptical about saying that much has been achieved to-date.

Following a track on the post-2015 development agenda, and a new phase in the MDGs with SDGs becoming the new actualization of efforts for progress, constitutes already a program that has promise. The Open Working Group tasked January 22nd by the UNGA, with advancing action towards implementing a Rio+20 recommendation to develop a set of sustainable development goals, is the first UN move since the June 2012 Rio Conference in the direction of “THE FUTURE WE WANT.”

Above agenda and a list of SDGs could then be the input to the Panel of Eminent People established by the Rio+20 review that looks at the creation of a new UN structure to take the place of the Commission for Sustainable Development – the outgoing UN CSD – and as we feel – the way to a recommendation for implementation of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) concept for true sustainability. It would be a pity if all that intense work by the Brazilian diplomats in 2012, in the run-up to the Rio meeting, will be allowed to go to waste.

Japan & EU Move to Cut Rio+20, US “Divides on Scales,” of R2P & Ban’s Car.

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, December 21 — Alongside the approach of the US fiscal cliff in Washington, at the UN in New York the annual budget fight is entering the end-game. Thursday the gloves came off, tellingly about a $8.7 million budget proposal to “implement Rio+20″ on sustainable development.

The UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions ACABQ supported the budget item. But on Thursday the European Union and Japan proposed to cut that budget to zero. This gave rise to howls among the Group of 77 and China, and accusations that the EU and Japan are hypocrites on sustainable development and the environment.

There are other fights, on a proposed salary freeze in the UN Common System and the deferred issue of re-costing of the budget. The funding and mandate of the Responsibility to Protect office is being questioned, while other “Special Political Missions” are almost agreed.

Less certain is Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s “mobility” proposal, on which Ban met with a group of Permanent Representatives and got feedback sources say he did not expect. Still the effort continues.

Seemingly less contentious than in other years has been the scales of assessment. But, a good Fifth (Budget) Committee sources exclusively tells Inner City Press that “some attempts by the United States to split the Group of 77 irritated the Group and made progress stop.”

The US Mission’s budget and reform ambassador Joe Torsella was at Morocco’s End of Security Council Presidency reception in the UN Tent Thursday night, just behind the North Lawn building where the talks are talking place.

Man’s got to eat. But seven fishes for Christmas Eve? (Click here for that story from last year). This year, how will re-costing play out?

What about reform issues like Secretary General Ban Ki-moon this week accepting as a gift from South Korea an armor plated Hyundai? What safeguards are in place? Watch this site.

Footnote: the UN provided Inner City Press with this answer to a related, previously asked question about the Capital Master Plan:

Subject: Answer to your question
From: UN Spokesperson – Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 10:12 AM
To: Matthew Russell Lee [at]  innercitypress.com

Please find our answer to the question your asked yesterday at the Noon briefing:

“The CMP is contributing to a report the Chef de Cabinet is preparing on what lessons the Secretariat (not just the CMP) can learn from Hurricane Sandy.”

The following article is written as if nothing was learned from the outcome of the June 2012 meeting in Rio de Janeiro and continues the old line of calls of transfer of funds without calling for joint projects that address increased efficiency in use of energy in order to decrease CO2 emissions.

The Huffington Post on-line today has also articles about New York City and New Jersey State following Hurricane Sandy’s visit, that should have brought home the issue of Climate Change. Those articles, and information about climate events in China, India, Brazil, Mexico, besides common information rolling out for years from Bangladesh and the Island-States, ought to be a joint inter-National starting point to the Doha deliberations.
If the subject does not start from a common basis for all of mankind – the old-rich and the new-rich as well – simply said – New York and New Jersey will just waste their resources in building separation walls from the rest of the world, and nobody will be better off by the end of this century. It is just a pipe-dream that an impoverished EU can carry the world on the shoulders of their fiscal managers.

2012 UN Climate Talks In Doha, Qatar, Face Multiple Challenges.

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — As nearly 200 countries meet in oil-and-gas-rich Qatar for annual talks starting Monday, November 26, 2016, on slowing global warming, one of the main challenges will be raising climate aid for poor countries at a time when budgets are strained by financial turmoil.

Rich countries have delivered nearly $30 billion in grants and loans promised in 2009, but those commitments expire this year. And a Green Climate Fund designed to channel up to $100 billion annually to poor countries has yet to begin operating.

Borrowing a buzzword from the U.S. budget debate, Tim Gore of the British charity Oxfam said developing countries, including island nations for whom rising sea levels pose a threat to their existence, stand before a “climate fiscal cliff.”

“So what we need for those countries in the next two weeks are firm commitments from rich countries to keep giving money to help them to adapt to climate change,” he told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Creating a structure for climate financing has so far been one of the few tangible outcomes of the two-decade-old U.N. climate talks, which have failed in their main purpose: reducing emissions of heat-trapping gases that scientists say are warming the planet, melting ice caps, glaciers and permafrost, shifting weather patterns and raising sea levels.

The only binding treaty to limit such emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, expires this year, so agreeing on an extension is seen as the most urgent task by environment ministers and climate officials meeting in the Qatari capital.

However, only the European Union and a few other countries are willing to join a second commitment period with new emissions targets. And the EU’s chief negotiator, Artur Runge-Metzger, admitted that such a small group is not going to make a big difference in the fight against climate change.

“I think we cover at most 14 percent of global emissions,” he said.

The U.S. rejected Kyoto because it didn’t cover rapidly growing economies such as China and India. Some hope for stronger commitments from U.S. delegates in Doha as work begins on drafting a new global treaty that would also apply to developing countries including China, the world’s top carbon emitter. That treaty is supposed to be adopted in 2015 and take effect five years later.

Climate financing is a side issue but a controversial one that often deepens the rich-poor divide that has hampered the U.N. climate talks since their launch in 1992. Critics of the U.N. process see the climate negotiations as a cover for attempts to redistribute wealth.

Runge-Metzger said the EU is prepared to continue supporting poorer nations in converting to cleaner energy sources and in adapting to a shifting climate, despite the debt crisis roiling Europe. But he couldn’t promise that the EU would present any new pledges in Doha and said developing countries must present detailed “bankable programs” before they can expect any money.

Sometimes, developing countries seem to be saying, “OK give us a blank check,” he told AP.

Climate aid activists bristled at that statement, saying many developing countries have already indicated what type of programs and projects need funding.

“They need the financial and technical support from the EU and others. Yet they continue to promise ‘jam tomorrow’ whilst millions suffer today,” said Meena Raman of the Third World Network, a nonprofit group.

Countries agreed in Copenhagen in 2009 to set up the Green Climate Fund with the aim of raising $100 billion annually by 2020. They also pledged to raise $30 billion in “fast-start” climate financing by 2012.

While that short-term goal has nearly been met by countries including the EU, Japan, Australia and the U.S., Oxfam estimates that only one-third of it was new money; the rest was previously pledged aid money repackaged as climate financing.

Oxfam also found that more than half of the financing was in the form of loans rather than grants, and that financing levels are set to fall in 2013 as rich countries rein in aid budgets amid debt problems and financial instability.

Meanwhile, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere keeps going up. It has jumped 20 percent since 2000, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, according to a U.N. report released last week.

A recent projection by the World Bank showed temperatures are on track to increase by up to 4 degrees C (7.2 F) this century, compared with pre-industrial times, overshooting the 2-degree target on which the U.N. talks are based.

www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/25/2012-un-climate-talks-qatar_n_2188048.html

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NJ Rebuilding Efforts ‘Throwing Money Out To Sea’?

Will NYC Build A Barrier To Protect From Surges?

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UN Climate Change Conference Opens In Doha, Qatar.

AP |  By KARL RITTER Posted: 11/26/2012 2:37

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — Anticipating an onslaught of criticism from poor nations, the United States claimed “enormous” strides in reducing greenhouse emissions at the opening of U.N. climate talks Monday, despite failing to join other industrialized nations in committing to binding cuts.

The pre-emptive U.S. approach underscores one of the major showdowns expected at the two-week conference as China pushes developed countries to take an even greater role in tackling global warming.

Speaking for a coalition of developing nations known as the G77, China’s delegate, Su Wei, said rich nations should become party to an extended Kyoto Protocol — an emissions deal for some industrialized countries that the Americans long ago rejected — or at least make “comparable mitigation commitments.”

The United States rejected Kyoto because it didn’t impose any binding commitments on major developing countries such as India and China, which is now the world’s No. 1 carbon emitter.

American delegate Jonathan Pershing offered no new sweeteners to the poor countries, only reiterating what the United States has done to tackle global warming: investing heavily in clean energy, doubling fuel efficiency standards and reducing emissions from coal-fired power plants. Pershing also said the United States would not increase its earlier commitment of cutting emissions by 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. It is half way to that target.

“I would suggest those who don’t follow what the U.S. is doing may not be informed of the scale and extent of the effort, but it’s enormous,” Pershing said.

“It doesn’t mean enough is being done. It’s clear the global community, and that includes us, has to do more if we are going to succeed at avoiding the damages projected in a warming world,” Pershing added. “It is not to say we haven’t acted. We have and we have acted with enormous urgency and singular purpose.”

The battles between rich and poor nations have often undermined talks in the past decade and stymied efforts to reach a deal to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C (3.6 F), compared to pre-industrial times. Efforts taken in the absence of a deal to rein in emissions, reduce deforestation and promote clean technology are not getting the job done. A recent projection by the World Bank showed temperatures are expected to increase by up to 4 degrees C (7.2 F) by 2100.

Countries are hoping to build on the momentum of last year’s talks in Durban, South Africa, where nearly 200 nations agreed to restart stalled negotiations with a deadline of 2015 to adopt a new treaty and extend Kyoto between five and eight years. The problem is that only the European Union and a handful of other nations — which together account for less than 15 percent of global emissions — are willing to commit to that.

Delegates in the Qatari capital of Doha are also hoping to raise billions of dollars to help developing countries adapt to a shifting climate.

“We owe it to our people, the global citizenry. We owe it to our children to give them a safer future than what they are currently facing,” said South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who led last year’s talks in Durban.

Environmentalists fear holding the talks in Qatar — the world’s biggest per capita emitter — could slow progress. They argue that the Persian Gulf emirate has shown little interest in climate talks and has failed to reign in its lavish lifestyle and big-spending ways.

There was hope among activists that Qatar might use Monday’s opening speech to set the tone of the conference. But Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, the president of the conference and a former Qatari oil minister, didn’t offer any voluntary emission targets or climate funding for poor nations.

“Some countries, especially the one where we are sitting, have the potential to decrease their carbon emissions. They have the highest per capita emissions, so they can do a lot,” said Wael Hmaidan, a Lebanese activist and director of the Climate Action Network.

“If nations that are poorer than Qatar, like India and Mexico, can make pledges to reduce their carbon emissions, then countries in the region, especially Qatar, should easily be able to do it. … They still haven’t proven they are serious about climate change.”

Al-Attiyah defended Qatar’s environmental record at a later news conference, insisting it was working to reduce emissions from gas flaring and its oil fields. Qatar is already doing plenty to help poor countries with financing, he said, adding that it was unfair to focus on per capita emissions.

“We should not concentrate on per capita. We should concentrate on the amount and quantity that each country produces individually,” al-Attiyah said. “The quantity is the biggest challenge, not per capita.”

The concentration of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide has jumped 20 percent since 2000, according to a U.N. report released last week. The report also showed that there is a growing gap between what governments are doing to curb emissions and what needs to be done to protect the world from potentially dangerous levels of warming.

At the same time, many scientists say extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Sandy’s onslaught on the U.S. East Coast, will become more frequent as the Earth warms, although it is impossible to attribute any individual event to climate change. The rash of violent weather in the U.S., including widespread droughts and a record number of wildfires this summer, has again put climate change on the radar.

“While none of these individual events are necessarily because of climate change, they are certainly consistent with what we anticipate will happen in a warming world,” Pershing said. “The combination of these events is certainly changing minds of Americans and making clear to people at home the consequences of increased growth in emissions.”

In Washington, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., urged the U.S. delegation at the talks to “heed the warnings from Sandy and other extreme weather supercharged by climate change.”

“If the United States does not aggressively pursue sharp reductions in carbon pollution following the droughts, storms and other extreme weather events we have endured, the rest of the world will doubt our sincerity to address climate change,” Markey said. “It’s time to attack the carbon problem head on, and adapt to a climate already changed for the worse.”

Many countries referenced Hurricane Sandy as a rallying cry for tough action to cap emissions, including a group of small island nations that said the monster storm may have jolted the world to recognize “that we are all in this together.”

“When the tragedies occur far away from the media spotlight, they are too often ignored or forgotten,” the island nations said in a statement.

Toward a New Generation of Development Goals – A Day of Informal Discussions
Monday November 26, 2012, 9:30 am – 5:40 pm
United Nations, New York, NLB Conference Room 1

as per e-mail from the UN-NGLS — the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service.

Background:

Following the Rio+20 Summit, and as the world and UN system move closer to the milestone of 2015 for
realization of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), many discussions are underway concerning the future
of the MDGs and their relation to the new generation of development goals that will succeed them.
Simultaneous discussions have emerged about whether the world needs a new development paradigm, and if
so, what sort of framework must underpin it, what aspirational goals will guide it, and what targets and
indicators will be used to measure and evaluate its progress. This new framework will not be built in the same
way we achieved the MDGs, which were distilled from key international agreements reached during the major
development conferences of the 1990s. The current state of international agreement regarding the future of
development is not yet at the point of consensus reflected in the Millennium Declaration and MDGs. Now, in
addition, the field of development actors has broadened: the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in
Busan, Korea, in 2011 culminated in a Partnership Agreement that—for the first time—established a framework
for development co-operation that includes traditional donors, South-South co-operators, the BRICS, civil society
organisations and private funders. All of these actors, as well as the G20, now have a major influence in the
shaping of development post-2015.

—————————–
Purpose and Format:

The purpose of this day of informal discussions is to bring together key participants in the relevant stakeholder
groups – in civil society, the UN system and among political decision-makers – to further ongoing discussions on
what is needed in order to move toward a new generation of development goals. The day’s discussions are
divided into three panels that will focus on what is needed to: 1) determine the guiding principles and values for
a joint MDG/SGD agenda, 2) define the core concepts and main elements of a new development paradigm, and
3) ensure coherence in bringing the different processes together. The need to bring the remaining work on
MDGs together in a single track along with the development of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) according
to the outcomes of Rio+20 is imperative and as such is a guiding principle for the day’s discussions.

9:30 am – 9:45 am
Opening: Welcome Remarks
Rubén Campos, Programs Coordinator, Club de Madrid
Patricia Espinosa, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Government of Mexico
Werner Puschra, Executive Director, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New York Office

————————–
9:45 am – 11:30 am

Panel 1: Guiding Principles and Values for a Joint MDG/SDG Agenda
The Millennium Summit of September 2000 was the culmination of a decade of intense international debate on
aid in which both governments and civil society were strongly engaged. The resulting Millennium Declaration
put forward the human-rights based values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature, and
shared responsibility. This set of guiding principles informed the development of the MDGs, but the process
towards them led to the imperfect capture of the ideals of the Millennium Declaration.
Nevertheless, the Millennium Declaration is and must be the touchstone for the principles and values that will
guide a joint MDG/SDG agenda. Additionally, the UN Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda has
proposed “a vision for the future that rests on the core values of human rights, equality and sustainability” that
is “reorganized along four key dimensions of a more holistic approach: (1) inclusive social development; (2)
inclusive economic development; (3) environmental sustainability; and (4) peace and security.” Panel 1
therefore brings together a set of speakers representing different stakeholder perspectives, from political
decision-makers, leaders from civil society and members of the UN Secretariat, to debate these and other
overarching principles and values that should guide the UN’s development agenda moving forward.

Moderator: Werner Puschra, Executive Director, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New York Office
Inputs from: Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru (2001-2006); Member, Club de Madrid
Shamshad Akhtar, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development, UN Department of
Economic and Social Affairs
Maria Teresa Mesquita Pessôa, Minister Plenipotentiary, Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United
Nations
H.E. Mr. Jun Yamazaki, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Japan to the United Nations
Telma Viale, Representative, Special Representative to the United Nations and Director, International
Labour Organization
Mwangi Waituru, Co-Chair, Executive Board, Beyond 2015; Director, Seed Institute; National Cocoordinator,
GCAP Kenya
Reflections: From members of the High-Level Panel on post-2015 framework:
Patricia Espinosa, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Government of Mexico
John Podesta, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Chair and
Counselor, Center for American Progress
Stefano Prato, Advisor to SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda Member Betty
Maina, Kenya; Managing Director, Society for International Development (Italy)

——————————
11:30am – 1:00 pm

Panel 2: Main Elements of a New Development Paradigm
The UN Inter Agency Task Team’s report to the Secretary General, “Realizing the Future We Want For All”,
proposes a more holistic approach toward a post-2015 development agenda. The Task Team’s recommendation
is that principles (human rights, equality and sustainability), broad objectives (environmental sustainability,
inclusive economic development, inclusive social development, and peace and security) as well as specific goals
and targets related to the objectives be embedded in an enabling environment which is characterized by
elements such as a fair and stable global trading, macroeconomic and financial system, sustainable food and
nutrition security, sustainable use of natural resources and democratic and coherent global governance
mechanisms.
Panel 2’s discussion is based upon an embrace of the idea that envisioning coherent and related national,
regional and global policy areas necessary for an enabling environment is an essential step in the creation of a
new and sustainable development paradigm. This panel will be an opportunity for interlocutors from civil society
and Member States to question and engage members of the Task Team and the broader Secretariat as well as to
present their own visions of the necessary enabling elements.

Moderator: Clem McCartney, Policy and Content Coordinator, Shared Societies Project, Club de Madrid
Inputs from: Homi Kharas, Executive Secretary, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post 2015 Development Agenda; Deputy
Director, Global Economy & Development Program, Brookings Institution
Rob Vos, Director of Development Policy, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
Claire Courteille, Director, Equality Department, International Trade Union Confederation
David O’Connor, Chief, Policy Analysis and Networks Branch, Division for Sustainable Development,
UN-DESA
Kalissa Regier, Coordination Committee, International Food Security and Nutrition Civil Society
Mechanism; Representative National Farmers Union of Canada to Via Campesina
Richard Morgan, Senior Advisor, Post 2015 Agenda, UNICEF
Manish Bapna, Executive Vice President & Managing Director, World Resources Institute
Jose Dallo, Programme Specialist, Bureau for Development Policy, UN Development Programme
Minh-Thu Pham, Director of Public Policy, UN Foundation
Corinne Woods, Director, UN Millennium Campaign

1:00 pm – 3:00 pm Lunch break-
——————————————————–

3:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Panel 3: Ensuring Coherence—Bringing the Different Processes Together
Panel 3 gives the opportunity for a variety of Member States to elaborate upon ideas and proposals for how the
UN System can bring the MDG and SDG processes together to achieve coherence. It will be an interactive
discussion moderated by Barbara Adams, a member of the Civil Society Reflection Group, first with
representatives of Member States and then opening up a question and answer session with the audience,
including taking questions remotely from those around the world who will be watching via livestream webcast.

Moderator: Barbara Adams, Senior Policy Advisor, Global Policy Forum.

3:00 pm-3:45 pm
Inputs from: H.E. Mr. Luis-Alfonso de Alba, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of
Mexico to the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Gérard Araud, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of France to
the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Enrique Román-Morey, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of
Peru to the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Hans Peter Wittig, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of
Germany to the United Nations
H.E. Sir Mark Lyall Grant, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the
United Kingdom to the United Nations
H.E. Mr. Mootaz Ahmadein Khalil, Ambassador and Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission
of the Arab Republic of Egypt to the United Nations

3:45 pm-4:00 pm
Reflections: From members of the High-Level Panel on post-2015 framework:
Betty Maina, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Chief Executive
Officer, Kenya Association of Manufacturers
Patricia Espinosa, Member, SG’s High-Level Panel on Post-2015 Development Agenda; Secretary of
Foreign Affairs, Government of Mexico

4:00 pm-5:00 pm
Q&A Session: Moderated by Barbara Adams
Questions and comments to Member State panelists and High-Level panelists will be taken from the
audience as well as via social media from those watching the livestream.

5:00 pm – 5:30 pm
Concluding Reflections
Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary General, United Nations
Alejandro Toledo, President of Peru (2001-2006); Member, Club de Madrid

5:30 pm – 5:40 pm
Organizers’ Wrap-up
Clem McCartney, Policy and Content Coordinator, Shared Societies Project, Club de Madrid
Werner Puschra, Executive Director, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, New York Office