Åsa Persson Profile picture
Research Director & Deputy Director at SEI @seiresearch @seiclimate. Adjunct Professor at @LiU_EnvChange @LiU_CSPR. Chair of @KlimatRadet. Island dweller.

May 29, 2022, 17 tweets

THREAD #Stockholm50 week is here. Here, key messages from the @SEIresearch & @CEEWIndia report prepared for the UN meeting. @StockholmPlus50 @andersen_inger

3 shifts and 3 barriers to overcome - not easy, but 50+ concrete recommendations for action 🧵👇

stockholm50.report

1⃣ As @andersen_inger states in the foreword, time to lay the needed groundwork for systemic change.

Our starting point was the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, which really had all the key insights, on humans' unprecedented change and need for boundaries.

un.org/en/conferences…

2⃣ We take stock of 50 years of global environmental governance.

📈Only around one-tenth of 200+ measurable global env and SD target have been met or seen significant progress.

Target-setting is not enough - the implementation gap needs to be closed.

3⃣ We assess the 1972 "Framework for environmental action", to understand the implementation gap.

✅ Much progress on environmental assessment
✅ Much progress on goals and agreements (as outputs, if not impact)
❌ Insufficient supporting measures

4⃣ We review the latest scientific assessments @ipcc @IPBES @UNEPIRP GEO GSDR and the messages are very clear:
- we are seeing unprecedented change
- urgent and transformative action needed
- we need to change consumption, production and investment as key drivers

5⃣ Despite current crises - pandemic, war, food/fuel prices - there is positive momentum for converting urgency to agency:

✅Broader public support
✅Accelerated technology deployment
✅Compelling co-benefits for health, labour productivity etc.

Sources @UNDP @SYSTEMIQ_Ltd

6⃣ The overarching challenge we collectively need to figure out now is how to:

⏰Compress timescales for decision-making, yet ensure robustness and legitimacy
⏳Extend time horizons to avoid lock-in, accommodate time lags and reduce intergenerational discrimination

7⃣ Footnote: "future generations" is no longer a distant concept. Everyone under 50 were future generations in 1972. Someone born 2022 will

🌎Be exposed to 7 times more heatwaves compared with their grandparents
🌎Have 1/8 of grandparents' CO2 budget under @IEA net zero scenari

8⃣ Our report presents no easy fixes, but seeks to plug gaps and raise new issues on the global agenda, to lay the groundwork for systemic change in an equitable way.

✅3 broad shifts aligned with core idea of sustainable development
✅52 concrete recommendations

9⃣ First shift - It is not just about valuing nature in economic terms, but taking a behavioural, educational and rights-based approach to our relationship with nature.

12 concrete recommendations (e.g. revise national curricula, a global edu campaign) 👉 stockholm50.report

1⃣0⃣ Second shift - Through the economy and value chain: make sustainable lifestyles the easy choice, more functions less goods, green and decent jobs, sustainability criteria in innovation, alternative welfare metrics.

17 concrete recommendations!

1⃣1⃣ Third shift - Scale up investment by more public R&D funding, new paradigm for technology transfer, more private capital through active portfolios and de-risking initiatives, disincentivise unsustainable invesment.

11 concrete recommendations!

1⃣2⃣ These ideas are not necessarily new, why is not more happening?

We point to 3 structural barriers and 12 recommendations to start dismantling them.

👉 Policy incoherence: ensure strong and consistent incentives
👉Renewed multilateralism
👉A culture of accountability

1⃣3⃣ On accountability, there is a need for a fresh approach: clearer responsibilities, new information and data flows, clear answerability and consequence (positive or negative).

Stockholm+50 can set a new standard.

1⃣4⃣ Finally, leaders gathering in Stockholm should ask themselves: how do we make Stockholm+100 redundant - or at best a celebration only?

Read also:
🌎Youth report
🌎18 background papers stockholm50.report/#group-section…

BIG THANKS to everyone involved in preparing this report in short time - Advisory Panel, authors, contributing researchers, reviewers, editor, comms teams, design team, funders - this was a true team effort. Thanks @CEEWIndia for fantastic teamwork despite pandemic circumstances.

And thank you generations before and after for the inspiration.

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