Draft DPI/NGO 2007 Declaration on Climate Change

From Yochai Benkler - Wealth of Networks
Revision as of 10:52, 5 July 2007 by Grandpa Ruh (talk | contribs) (Initial draft by Larry Roeder)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
  1. We, delegates to the 60th DPI/NGO Conference, have gathered from 5-7 September, 2007 in New York City to discuss how the NGO community can work together more effectively to reduce the risks of Climate Change.
  2. We are particularly concerned that insufficient resources have been made available to protect the poor and disadvantaged from Climate Change
  3. We believe that Climate Change, regardless of its causes, is a direct threat to our common efforts to reduce poverty, hunger and disease.
  4. We commit ourselves to spending the next twelve months to develop a harmonized NGO approach to Climate Change, one that links all NGOs, whether focused on gender, agriculture, livestock, livelihood protection, peace-building, sustainable development or other issues.
  5. We call on all participants in the 2007 DPI/NGO Conference to join together in common cause to articulate a practical strategy, list NGO-led programs of worth and craft a common report on those efforts for presentation at the 2008 DPI/NGO Conference (in Paris).
  6. We recognize that the international community has accumulated much experience with disaster risk reduction and commend former Vice President Al Gore and the many organizations are already working on the Climate Change issue. Our effort must be added value, not separate.
  7. We recognize the precedence of productive contributions of UN partnered NGOs in enhancing the environment, civil rights, peace, etc and call on all NGOs to continue that tradition, drawing on experiences such as the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm which began a tradition of a vigorous NGO partnership in developing environmental policy or the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 which attracted 4,000 NGOs, a worthy goal for the 2008 DPI/NGO Conference in Paris. Another inspiration is the World Summit on Sustainable Development (Johannesburg 2002) that attracted 35,000 participants. The World Conference on Disaster Reduction (Kobe, Japan 2005) built a practical path for future action that drew heavily on experts from the NGO community, another goal for future DPI/NGO conferences.
  8. To guide our work over the next year, we have agreed on several principles.
    • Regardless of the causes, climate change is a direct threat to sustainable development, poverty reduction and the prevention of disease.
    • NGOs, industry, the United Nations, other international organizations and governments must work together.
    • The NGO community must work in partnership with the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015
    • We must foster a culture of disaster prevention and resilience, and associated pre-disaster strategies.
    • (Conference participants can recommend a set of other priorities here. Once combined, these may form the basis for virtual workshops that collaborate over the coming months.)
  9. We express our appreciation to the United Nations for hosting this conference and the people of the City of New York for their graciousness and hospitality.




Note: This draft is a lightly edited version of an initial proposal prepared by Larry Roeder for consideration by the Networking Sub-Committee of the Planning Committee for the 60th Annual DPI/NGO Conference and that had been posted as a page on the NGO Networking Google Group. The development of the Draft Declaration is being transferred to this site as a wiki site offers substantially greater support for the development of collaborative documents.