DRAFT for NGOMG Intervention in the Declaration on Future Generations Stakeholder Consultations

 DRAFT for NGOMG Intervention in the Declaration on Future Generations Stakeholder Consultations

• What are the principles that should ground our commitments in the Declaration on Future Generations?

• What practical steps are needed at the global level to take future generations systematically into account?

• What should the Summit of the Future aim to achieve so that we live up to our obligations to future generations?

What do we want to leave for all those generations that do not yet exist, are yet to come and who will eventually inherit this planet.?

1. Principles for the Declaration on Future Generations

I am glad to speak on behalf of the NGO Major Group, which brings together many thousands of groups working around the world on sustainable development.

The Declaration of the Future Generations offers a chance to build a vision for the coming generations that recognizes all age demographics as equally valuable, heterogeneous groups with different needs and experiences to be recognized, visibilized and taken into account as active agents of transformation. (Children, youth, adults, older persons).

We need to ensure that younger generations today are endowed with the skills to create a just and inclusive transition but also that the present generation steps forward now as agents, as participants, as leaders of sustainable development. No actor should be tokenized, we ask for a voice and a collaborative approach to decision-making 

As things stand now, humanity is consuming the equivalent of 1.75 Earths, whereas the real carrying capacity is about 0.5 times current consumption levels of the Earth, so we must massively shift our economic model to a circular economy for the survival of humanity. The Declaration needs to emphasize and commit to intergenerational justice with detailed economic, ecological, and sociopolitical accountability from current generations towards the future ones. We need to integrate efforts so that the resources for present generations do not jeopardize the needs of the future ones.

Our future generations deserve living space within our common house. The health, livelihoods, food security and wellbeing of future generations depend on their relationship with nature, including animals, both wildlife and domesticated species. As per the resolution adopted by the United Nations Environment Assembly on 2 March 2022, the Declaration should recognize the interconnectedness of humans, animals and the environment, and promote a One Health approach. We need to strengthen animal health systems and to build resilience through regenerative agriculture, sustainable livestock systems.We need to rapidly phase out  our dependency on fossil-fuel energies and work on less contaminating energies and patterns of consumption/production that will allow future generations new ways of living without creating chaos or destabilization on Earth

 

There will be no climate justice without peace and the guarantees for rights to humans and nature. Climate justice will not be accomplished without an end to wars, colonialism, and other structural forms of oppression. This should be accompanied by social protection, as a human right, that allows every person in the present and the future to live with dignity. Moreover, the future generations need to understand the value of cooperation by ensuring that multilateralism has a tangible respect to international humanitarian law, human rights, and protection of the environment. And this needs places the importance of a transformative education and lifelong learnings such as the Global citizenship and Education for Sustainable Development. 

As NGO MG, we encourage to move forward on the DFG by 

• Introducing a UN High Representative for Future Generations

• Incorporating the rights of the future generations across all the UN system: UN policy making with a particular view and follow-up on the steps to take after 2030

• Enforcing the right to a healthy environment and respect for all forms of life across the planet

• Establishing an intergenerational project funding to ensure that lessons are learned and shared among generations.   

The Summit of the Future should achieve a strong and feasible Declaration on Future Generations as well as the incorporation of inputs from other processes such as the ECOSOC Partership Forum, the CSO Conference in Nairobi, and the HLPF 2024. It should be a space that involves meaningfully and not tokenistikally all stakeholders, particularly those who are marginalized by diverse systems. Particularly for CSOs and academia, the SoTF needs a space, such as an Action weekend where Member States and UN high-level actors participate in a collaborative and mutual manner with our sectors. 

Whatever action we do today will impact our present and our future. What is the world we want to leave to our future generations? As NGOMG, we ask for processes that influence policy change at the local and regional levels facing the coming Summit of the Future. Every action we do today will impact our present and our future. This Declaration will become a blueprint of the world we want to leave to our future generations  

Please add your inputs to our NGO MG intervention in bullet points that are clear and concise. Some documents which can be useful for preparing any intervention are Our Common Agenda "To Think and to Act for Future Generations" our-common-agenda-policy-brief-future-generations-en.pdf (un.org) and the Issues Paper on the Intergovernmental Process for the Declaration on Future Generations DFG-Draft-Issues-Paper.pdf (un.org) YOU CAN ADD/EDIT COMMENTS UNTIL TODAY 15 JAN at 23:59 NYC

YOU CAN ADD/EDIT COMMENTS UNTIL TODAY 15 JAN at 23:59 NYC

I- Beside the projections on the United Nations Secretary General report (March 2023): Think and Act about future generations “is not about people that will live after us” , but a multilayer, multidimensional, multidisciplinary and multicultural generations nurtured by information and communication technology, where the social segment of older persons or youths will be the same (except in Africa, sub saharan because of the ever growing population until 2100, while all others continents has a dynamic of population trajectory curve which is falling, therefore, an increasing aging population with more older persons. Thus it is important to think about the future, not in term of people that will live after us, but people that we live with us, by us and for us. All generations together united with the same goals of combating climate change, enforcing human rights, peace and security and sustainable development with technology and innovation.We know we

are capable of far-sighted collective action,

Conclusion: what we need to do for the future generations, and what we need to do yourself is key.

II- WE KNOW WE ARE CAPABLE OF FAR SIGHTED COLLECTIVE ACTION, AS THE SUCCESSFUL RESTORATION OF THE OZONE LAYER DEMONSTRATES.

1. Does the Future really exist (human science, regression of sustainable development due to covid 19, rapid globalization is a source of ambiguity and variability, we can no longer refer to the canons of capitalism and fossil fuels : "what exactly are we talking about in the Future Summit (SOFT)?

1- You are absolutely right to say that we are very good at having reduced the first climate change based on the replacement of supermarket products and refrigeration machines which are the fluorine-based fluids, gels or gazes which threatened to destroy the ozone layer causes temperature rise, desertification, water problems, skin diseases (blindness, skin cancer, glandular dysfunction, fires, drought. The Montreal Protocol has made it possible to replace these toxic products but useful for progress with non-toxic products which do not destroy the ozone layer. It is the analytical relationship of Descartes which is exploited by the UN in this logic of cause and effect: cause --> consequence. That is to say that the UN removed the cause and the consequences disappeared and NASA observed that the layer closed. This is also the case of the Werewolf child. In the Werewolf syndrome, the drugs consumed are omeprazole doses in the Granada region of Spain. And it creates a dizzying growth of body polish on children. So they look more like monkeys than humans.

2- In contrast, the Urmia river in Iran has lost its water inlets since the construction of a dam upstream. It was once renowned for the quality of its waters, its tourism and the ecosystem developed by the lake environment. Except for 10 years, we have only observed that each year, it lost an area estimated at 0.85 square kilometers and each year this loss of area is added, which means that after 10 years, there remains more than 15% salt water in Lake Urmia (Study carried out in 2008 and 2018. So with this frequency of water loss, two later according to projections, the scenario of a lake filled with salt (and without water) is a more than probable scenario if not certain, if there is no intervention. According to the magazine "Geo", the whole country has such behavior, so that I I concluded that disasters are stress tests, and that we should not neglect them for future generations (which are not yet those who will live after us, even the children). We are all responsible for all generations combined and our duty of vigilance is common to all depending on our means. I remind you that issuing alerts is a lever for financing businesses. Therefore, we must not be afraid to criticize, denounce, and name all the economic, social, humanitarian, environmental and political dysfunctions for peace and security.

B- Why can't we glory in the successes of our past? Firstly because the past no longer exists (or not), then the past in today's complex world will no longer serve as a lesson, finally the future does not exist. It is very small, and the distant future has been created (so as not to let it create us. Let's transform the world, before it transforms us. Unlike the toxic substances responsible for the first climate change whose regulated action of the Montreal protocol has made it possible to reduce excessive temperatures compared to the average temperature of the industrial era (1750-1850)

1- Today we are no longer in a geological period of the Quaternary with the melting of the ice which frees the land from the sea with the thaw. The era in which we live is the Anthropocene, it is fossil emissions (carbon-based, dense, fluid or liquid energies) which are responsible for climate change. It is a change brought about by lifestyles based on production and consumption, and technical progress while the capitalist system would probably never have been interested in the consequences of these emissions which have catastrophic effects on all countries in the world. , but above all to certain so-called vulnerable categories which have never been questioned in this production and human consumption of CO2 at the origin of the melting of the ice, the warming of the temperature, the greenhouse effect (global warming) acid rain which is a real genocide of the natural environment, and the transformation of biodiversity on land and in the oceans; other problems will be linked to rising sea levels, deforestation, the cause of famine, poverty, poor health of the links in the ecosystem is destroyed, it is the entire chain of life which disappears for an artificialization of soils, of life, which generates even more negative consequences. It is a positive feedback loop whose synergies are uncontrollable and which gradually leads to worrying about the consequences of our actions and how to repair them. We can no longer be indifferent to our predatory lifestyle.

2- Today the whole world is now in a globalized space of conflicts (Palestine, Yemen, Afghanistan, Ethiopia...and if we talk a lot about the least developed countries, but the same problems are also encountered within the advanced countries ) So sustainable development, based on the voluntary strategies of states is the solution (and not the problem) as is the Paris agreement on climate change to limit the increase in temperature to 1.5°celsius compared to this average temperature of the industrial revolution of 15° celsius, and other normative frameworks (Sendai: reduction of disaster risks, New Urbanism Habitat III... where we must build pleasant cities for all, but not only that, it can also be pleasant villages or countryside based on infrastructures not necessarily High Tech, but also with IoT (Internet of Things) and other more or less innovative technologies. Including the technologies of the past which can be the solutions of the future in possible scenarios. Artificial intelligence should not be neglected but requires an open, positive mind and also an understanding of its environment. Moreover, all development frameworks require understanding, strengthening, investing and anticipation. The question is our political will to all want to change development paradigms into a more united, fairer and more respectful model. All this has already started. sustainable development will take circuitous paths. it will not be a question of conforming to development standards (benchmarking) but of using the means of countries and communities while trying not to endanger the sovereignty of states (especially for civil society actors who work at the security council level).

Conclusion:

Conclusion: This low-carbon social, energy transition in an environment with risks and opportunities is complex and cannot be reduced to a simple linear equation of cause and effect like Descartes' analysis for the ozone layer or the The UN is replacing toxic fluorine gas with non-fluorinated products. In the case of the oil society which had become our daily addiction thanks to the well-being it provided (qualitative good), without taking into account pollution, it is more a question today of taking care of our future, and of taking care of the young people of tomorrow. the tracks exist. But societies with high levels of production and consumption of carbon have been fed since the Second World War (and even before) by the fruits of oil. and it is all the multidimensional, multi-level, multidisciplinary, multicultural aspects which have been impregnated and soaked with oil by the use that we have made of the technologies. So we cannot, as with the ozone abandoned by linear matter, our dependence on fossil energies, to immediately find good and care for the future. However, we have in place the bricks and materials that will allow future generations to make revolution, conditions of trust and hope. During the COP28, the turning point of the 21st for renewable energies, and clean energies were recorded, it is a seesaw or inflection point which must be accelerated by combating fossil energies, by promoting sustainable soft energies and by putting new ways of living into daily practice so as not to create chaos or continue on the path of destabilization at the origin of insecurity.

Happy New Year!