Felix Dodds Explained

Felix Dodds
Occupation:Author

Felix Dodds, born Michael Nicholas Dodds, is a British author, futurist, and activist.

He stood in Mid Derbyshire for the Liberal Democrats in the 2019 General Election.[1] He has been instrumental in developing new modes of stakeholder engagement with the United Nations, particularly within the field of sustainable development. His latest book is Tomorrow's People and New Technology: Changing How We Live Our Lives. Dodds was the Executive Director of the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future from 1992–2012. He is the author of How to Lobby at Intergovernmental Meetings: Mine is a Café Latte, written with co-author Michael Strauss.

Dodds has written a trilogy of books known as the Vienna Cafe Trilogy, which covers the history of sustainable development at the global level. He wrote the third book in the series, Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals (2017), with Ambassador Donoghue and Jimena Leiva Roesch. The other two are the 2014 From Rio+20 to the New Development Agenda written by Jorge Laguna Celis and Liz Thompson, and the 2012 Only One Earth – The Long Road via Rio to Sustainable Development written by Michael Strauss and Maurice Strong. The books look at the Rio+20 process and outcomes and the last forty years and the challenges for the future. His previous books include the Water, Food, Energy and Climate Nexus edited with Jamie Bartram, which takes up the themes of three of his other books on human and environmental security. These are Biodiversity and Ecosystem Insecurity edited with Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, UN Convention on Biological Diversity Executive Secretary. This is a companion book to Climate Change and Energy Insecurity, an edited volume with Andrew Higham and Richard Sherman, and Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change. The books argue that the new paradigm facing the world is the interface between environmental, human, and economic security considerations. Dodds believes this is due to the failure of developed countries to deliver on promises made during the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and the 2002 World Summit in Johannesburg.

In 2010, Green Eco Services listed him as one of the twenty-five environmentalists ahead of their time.[2]

Early years

Dodds was born in Allestree in Derby.[3] Dodds went on to study physics at the University of Surrey, where he was active in student politics. He contributed much of his time to the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Surrey Students Union, for which he was Deputy President between 1977 and 1978. After university, Dodds went on to teach mathematics and physics, first at the Khartoum International Community School, and then in London at the Harlington Community School https://web.archive.org/web/20090311022506/http://www.harlington.hillingdon.sch.uk/Index.php.

Political work (1980–1990)

Early in his career, Dodds was active in UK politics and involved with the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Anti-Nazi League. Dodds also engaged with environmental issues such as acid rain, nuclear power and ozone depletion. He held positions in the Liberal Party between 1983 and 1987 and became chairperson of the party's "young wing," the National League of Young Liberals (NLYL), in 1985.

Dodds was an instigator in the rebellion against the SDP-Liberal Alliance leadership of David Steel and David Owen over the issue of an independent nuclear deterrence. The rebel alliance produced the publication Across the Divide: Liberal Values on Defence and Disarmament, which outlined the Liberal Party's historic opposition to the UK having an independent nuclear deterrent. This resulted in a major defeat to the leadership in 1986, by twenty-three votes at the Liberal Party Conference defence debate in Eastbourne.[4]

After his involvement in the NLYL, Dodds published his first book, Into the Twenty-First Century: An Agenda for Political Realignment. His work called for closer cooperation between Green members on the left in British politics. Contributors to the book included: Jonathon Porritt, Jean Lambert, Peter Hain, Simon Hughes, Michael Meadowcroft, Sara Parkin, Petra Kelly in Germany, Jeremy Seabrook, Peter Tatchell and Hilary Wainwright. In 1988, Dodds co-founded Green Voice, which worked for two years to create a dialogue between Green members on the left of UK politics. In 2018 he published his autobiography about those years: Power to the People: Confessions of a Young Liberal Activist 1975–1988.

Leadership at the UN (1990–present)

Since 1990, Dodds has been active within the United Nations network, originally as Director of the United Nations Environment and Development, UK Committee (UNED-UK). This organisation evolved into the UNED Forum, eventually leading to its successor organization, the Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future. These organisations played a critical role in mobilising support for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 and Rio+20 in 2012. In the months leading up to the meeting, Stakeholder Forum's Earth Summit website was used by stakeholders as the primary non-UN online resource. For the Rio+20 conference, Stakeholder Forum was a partner to the UN to engage stakeholders in the conference.

In 2000, Dodds's book, Earth Summit 2002: A New Deal, outlined many of the key issues for the Summit two years before it occurred.

Dodds has co-founded global Non-governmental organization coalitions for a number of United Nations processes, including the annual United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (UN CSD), the 1996 UN-HABITAT II Conference, and the 1999 World Health Organization Health and Environment Conference in London.

Dodds co-chaired the NGO coalition at the UN CSD from 1997 to 2001 and is credited with proposing to the UN General Assembly in 1996 the introduction of Stakeholder Dialogues at the United Nations. Dodds has played a role in their development since that time and is an advocate for the involvement of stakeholders in the decision-making process and implementation of global agreements. He has argued that we are in a process of transition from representative democracy – Madison democracy[5] to a participatory democracy – Jeffersonian Democracy. Dodds contends that at present, we are in a period of stakeholder democracy, and trying, at various levels within society, to develop the structures, vocabulary, and institutions to embed this phase. He believes such developments will strengthen world democracy. In 2019 he outlined his theory of stakeholder democracy in his book Stakeholder Democracy: Represented Democracy in a Time of Fear.

Since 2004, Dodds has been working on the emerging agenda of human and environmental security. His book, Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change, produced with Tim Pippard of Jane's Information Group, outlines the critical issues of this new agenda. Dodds argues that due to the failure of donor governments to fund the agendas stemming from summits at Rio and Johannesburg, many environmental issues are now becoming security dilemmas.

He has held a number of positions, including Member of the Green Globe Task Group to advise the Foreign Secretary on issues of sustainable development; Member of the International Advisory Board for 'Down to Earth – sustainable consumption in the 21st Century; Member of the Board of the Montreal International Forum; The Co-Chair International Steering Committee for Rio+8; Member of the International Advisory Board for the 2001 Bonn Freshwater Conference; A Commissioner of the Commission on Globalisation; A Member of the International Steering Committee for the Conference Hilltops to Oceans; A Bremen Partnership Award Judge; Member of the Advisory Group for the 2006 Basque Sustainable Development Conference; Member of the G8 (Russian Government) International Advisory Council of Non-governmental Organizations.

Dodds has, in the past, advised the European Union, the governments of Denmark, and the UK at intergovernmental events. Dodds also served as an advisor on civil society to the Russian Government for the 2006 G8 Summit. From 2006 to 2007, he was a member of the UNEP Global Environmental Outlook 4 Outreach Advisory Committee and is a former board member of the Montreal International Forum.

He was selected by the United Nations Department for Public Information (DPI) and NGOs to chair the UN DPI Conference on "Sustainable Societies; Responsive Citizens" (which input to Rio+20). He was part of a number of advisory boards for Rio+20, including the global scientist's conference in 2012, Planet Under Pressure, the German Government sponsored conference Water, Energy and Food Security Nexus in the Green Economy, and the Government of Abu Dhabi-sponsored conference Eye on Earth Summit framework committee and stakeholder advisory committee.

Current positions

Dodds is an International Ambassador for the City of Bonn. He is an adjunct professor in Environmental Sciences and Engineering, a Senior Affiliate of the Water Institute at the University of North Carolina, and an Associate Fellow at the Tellus Institute in Boston. He was co-director of the Nexus 2014 and 2018: Water, Energy, Food, and Climate Conference. He is a writer and was for twenty years Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future from 1992 to 2012 and was President of Amber Valley Liberal Democrats until 2021.

He has had a semi-regular column, 'Food for Thought' in the Stakeholder Forum newsletter Outreach which is published daily at UN meetings such as the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and UNFCCC. He has been an occasional writer for Inter Press Service and the BBC's website and Forbes and Inter-Press Service News Service. He has taken up blogging on sustainable development and Twitter.

Works

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Derbyshire Mid Parliamentary constituency . . BBC . 9 March 2023.
  2. Web site: 25 Environmentalists Ahead of Their Time.
  3. Web site: Felix Dodds . Liberal Democrats . 3 October 2021 . en.
  4. http://liberalhistory.org.uk/item_single.php?item=history&item_id=79 www.liberalhistory.org.uk – Simon Hughes: Defence debate at Eastbourne, 1986
  5. Web site: James Madison: Philosopher and Practitioner of Liberal Democracy (Library of Congress) . . 29 December 2017 . 4 March 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160304115359/http://www.loc.gov/loc/madison/symposium.html . dead .

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