A very interesting article from the New York Times:

For 17 years, officials from nearly 200 countries have gathered under the auspices of the United Nations to try to deal with one of the most vexing questions of our era — how to slow the heating of the planet.

Every year they leave a trail of disillusion and discontent, particularly among the poorest nations and those most vulnerable to rising seas and spreading deserts. Every year they fail to significantly advance their own stated goal of keeping the average global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius, or about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, above pre-industrial levels.

That was the case again this year. The event, the 17th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, wrapped up early Sunday morning with modest accomplishments: the promise to work toward a new global treaty in coming years and the establishment of a new climate fund.

The decision to move toward a new treaty — and toward replacing the 20-year-old system that requires only industrialized nations to cut emissions — was hard-won, after 72 hours of continuous wrangling. But for now it remains merely a pledge, and all details remain to be negotiated.

Negotiators also left for another day the precise sources of the money for the fund and how and by who it would be disbursed. Called the Green Climate Fund, it would help mobilize a promised $100 billion a year in public and private funds by 2020 to assist developing nations in adapting to climate change and converting to clean energy sources.

There is no denying the dedication and stamina of the environment ministers and diplomats who conduct these talks. But maybe the task is too tall. The issues on the table are far broader than atmospheric carbon levels or forestry practices or how to devise a fund to compensate those most affected by global warming.

What really is at play here are politics on the broadest scale, the relations among Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan and three rapidly rising economic powers, China, India and Brazil. Those relations, in turn, are driven by each country’s domestic politics and the strains the global financial crisis has put on all of them. And the question of “climate equity” — the obligations of rich nations to help poor countries cope with a problem they had no part in creating — is more than an “environmental” issue.

Effectively addressing climate change will require over the coming decades a fundamental remaking of energy production, transportation and agriculture around the world — the sinews of modern life. It is simply too big a job for those who have gathered for these talks under the 1992 United Nations treaty that began this grinding process.

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

To know more about the Gstaad Project and the work of the UN on climate change and other issues, click here. We believe UN and humanitarian aid workers on the ground in Africa and other areas of the world affected by poverty and famine — climate related and not — are true heroes… Our new book “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place” is now available online at Create Space, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobles.

According to an article published by Foreign Policy, UN Secretary-General is about to “clearing house.” Ban — the article reads — put his top advisers on notice that most of those who have served in his inner circle for the more than three and a half years of his run as the U.N.’s chief will have to step down in the coming months, providing him with an opportunity to start his second term with a new stable of younger, reinvigorated leaders, several officials told Turtle Bay.

Ban outlined his plans in a meeting with his top executives early last week, saying that officials at the undersecretary general and assistant secretary general level will likely be asked to either move to another post in the field or leave the organization. The U.N.’s deputy secretary general, Dr. Asha-Rose Migiro, has been tasked with approaching top officials to deliver the bad news. It was unclear whether Migiro, a former Tanzanian foreign minister, would also be asked to leave.

U.N. officials said that Ban has not yet singled out any individuals who would be required to go. But they said that his top team — including his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar of India; B. Lynn Pascoe, the American undersecretary general for political affairs; Angela Kane, the German undersecretary general for management; Kiyo Akasaka, the Japanese undersecretary general for public affairs; and Muhammad Shaaban, an Egyptian undersecretary general for General Assembly affairs and conference management — were all vulnerable.

Sha Zukang, a former Chinese diplomat who serves as undersecretary general for the department of economic and social affairs, would likely stay through next summer to host the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development, said an official familiar with the plan.

It is not unusual for U.N. secretary generals, like national political leaders, to shake up their top ranks at the start of a second term. Ban has made it clear from early in his administration that he doesn’t like to keep people in the same job for more than five years. But he’s also said that he will keep some top officials, particularly those in the field, in their current assignments, and that some would be reassigned to other tasks. Some would be expected to leave the U.N. system, however, much in the way political appointees in national governments are expected to move on following an election.

It remained unclear whether any officials would be spared, including Kim Wonsoo, who has served as Ban’s right hand man since his years in the Korean foreign ministry. Ban is in talks with key governments, to consider replacements, potentially candidates from the same countries that currently hold top aid posts.

For instance, the U.N. chief recently hired a French diplomat, Herve Ladsous, to head the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping, a job which has been held by a French national since 1997, when the previous UN peacekeeping chief, Ghana’s Kofi Annan, was elected U.N. secretary general. The United States is expected to try to retain the post in the U.N. department of political affairs.

To know more about the UN and its work around the world, read our newly-released book: “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place.” The book is available online at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-United-Nations-Andreas-Warburg/dp/0615467105). Click here for a review.

To read the article on Foreign Policy, click here.

New bipartisan public opinion research released today by the United Nations Foundation and its sister organization, the Better World Campaign, shows that there is strong support for the United Nations. The majority of Americans said they oppose the proposed legislation in Congress that would cut United States’ funding to the United Nations by 50%, and end funding to UN agencies that respond and take action after a natural disaster or humanitarian crisis, such as UNICEF and the World Health Organization.

The survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research Associates found that more than eight out of ten voters (86%) say it is important that the United States maintain an active role within the United Nations. Voters across the political spectrum overwhelmingly believe that the U.S. should pay our dues to the UN (64%) and UN peacekeeping operations (71%) on time and in full.

“This polling once again shows that Americans do not want to see the United States go back into debt at the United Nations. While misguided legislation in Congress would cause America to forfeit our leadership at the UN, we see time and time again that the majority of voters across the political spectrum believe the U.S. should have an active role within the UN,” said Timothy E. Wirth, President of the United Nations Foundation. “At a time when the United Nations is more relevant than ever in addressing the world’s greatest peace and security challenges, this survey is evidence that voters believe in the value of the United Nations to American interests.”

Click here to read more about the poll.

To know more about the Gstaad Project and why we believe the US should not cut UN funding, click here. We believe UN and humanitarian aid workers on the ground in Africa and other areas of the world are true heroes… Our new book “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place” is now available online at Create Space, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobles.

Angelina Jolie is in talks to take on a new and expanded role with the U.N. refugee agency for which she already serves as goodwill ambassador, she told reporters Tuesday.

The actress said that she and the agency are still studying their options and working out the details for her to deal with refugee crises, but haven’t settled on anything because they want to get it right. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told the agency’s executive committee Tuesday that the world-famous actress could serve as his special envoy “to mobilize strong international support” during particularly dire situations.

“We are looking at a few countries in the world,” Jolie said in answer to a brief question. “We’re hoping to discuss it in the next few weeks but we want to research it properly and do it well.”

To know more about the Gstaad Project and the work of the UN on the ground, click here. We believe UN and humanitarian aid workers on the ground in Africa and other areas of the world are true heroes… Our new book “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place” is now available online at Create Space, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobles.

America’s budget crisis at home is forcing the first significant cuts in overseas aid in nearly two decades, a retrenchment that officials and advocates say reflects the country’s diminishing ability to influence the world.

As lawmakers scramble to trim the swelling national debt, both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate have proposed slashing financing for the State Department and its related aid agencies at a time of desperate humanitarian crises and uncertain political developments. The proposals have raised the specter of deep cuts in food and medicine for Africa, in relief for disaster-affected places like Pakistan and Japan, in political and economic assistance for the new democracies of the Middle East, and even for the Peace Corps.

The financial crunch threatens to undermine a foreign policy described as “smart power” by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, one that emphasizes diplomacy and development as a complement to American military power. It also would begin to reverse the increase in foreign aid that President George W. Bush supported after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as part of an effort to combat the roots of extremism and anti-American sentiment, especially in the most troubled countries.

Given the relatively small foreign aid budget — it accounts for 1 percent of federal spending over all — the effect of the cuts could be disproportional.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

To know more about the Gstaad Project and why we believe the US should not cut UN funding, click here. We believe UN and humanitarian aid workers on the ground in Africa and other areas of the world are true heroes… Our new book “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place” is now available online at Create Space, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobles.

Justin Timberlake has been lauded for his work in music, TV and film. Now he’s about to get an accolade for trying to better the environment. The Environmental Media Association says Timberlake will receive its Futures Award, which represents future environmental leaders in entertainment.

Read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

To know more about the Gstaad Project, click here. Our new book “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place” is now available online at Create Space, Amazon, and Barnes and Nobles.

Here is a great article/interview by Eliza Villarino (DevEx):

Ban Ki-moon donned his usual smile as he sat across ABC News’s Juju Chang in a studio at United Nations headquarters in New York. Yet this was no usual TV interview. It was a first for the secretary-general: a global conversation on pressing U.N. issues via social media.

The Sept. 13 event was streamed live on Facebook, Livestream, Tumblr and the U.N. Webcast. Questions, which numbered more than 5,500, were submitted via Twitter and Weibo. They were sent in U.N. official languages – Arabic, Chinese English, French, Russian and Spanish – as well as in Portuguese and Swahili.

According to Nancy Groves, the U.N. social media focal point, that global conversation with Ban is, thus far, the most popular social media event of the United Nations.

The U.N. is among the most popular multilateral organizations on Twitter. As of Sept. 23, it had more than half a million Twitter followers.

It also has a broad social media presence. Aside from the networks used for Ban’s global conversation, the U.N. is also on Flickr, Storify and YouTube.

In this exclusive interview, Groves, who works in the U.N. Department of Public Information’s strategic communications division, shares how social media allows the multilateral organization to minimize resources while carrying out global campaigns. She argues that an organization should have a dedicated, full-time staff to manage its social media efforts.

– In less than 140 characters, describe your social media strategy or vision.

Demystify how the U.N. works – point followers to where the latest information is online – let citizens know how they can participate.

What has your social media presence allowed you to do that you may not have been able to achieve otherwise?

Using social media, we’re able to quickly start mini-campaigns with very few resources apart from staff time and talent. For example, we just launched a new campaign “Let’s Fight Racism!” which shows how each and every one of us plays a role in either contributing to or breaking down racial prejudice and intolerant attitudes. The campaign features postcards that people can send to their friends and family, a video, real-life stories and a quiz. We’ll also have an interactive component on Twitter using the #FightRacism hashtag.

Give an example or anecdote for how you’ve used social media in an innovative way.

The fact that the U.N. has established presences on social media platforms is in some ways innovative! A few years ago, we were debating whether or not the U.N. could or should even post content online in this way and, to be honest, these debates still take place.

Normally we use social media mainly as an information dissemination tool largely because the U.N. has a huge amount of in-demand information to share with people around the world, but we have used it to solicit comments from our fans and followers. For example, around the start of the new year, we asked followers to share their anti-poverty/Millennium Development Goals wishes for 2011, which resulted in 80 Twitter posts from 24 countries around the world. On Facebook, we asked people to send in photos of themselves at U.N. offices. We expected to get a lot of photos from New York, Geneva and Vienna, but were surprised to find people sending in photos from peacekeeping missions and from field offices as well. We received over 100 photos in the span of a few days and that has been one of our most popular Facebook initiative to date. We think this campaign was successful because it put a human face on the U.N. and also emphasized that the U.N. really is more than just peacekeepers, formal meetings and reports.

Our most popular event so far was the recent live global conversation with Ban Ki-moon that just took place on Sept. 13. Also popular are behind-the-scenes photos from Ban Ki-moon’s travels around the world. Over the summer, he ended up traveling through South America on a bus because volcano ash disrupted his flight plans and we posted some cell phone photos a colleague took during this trip. People really enjoyed seeing this different, personal side of the secretary-general. This video is another example.

What do development organizations, whether bilateral, multilateral, nonprofit or corporate, need to know about social media and how it can help them?

Once basic ground rules are established, such as avoiding posting offensive content, there is no right or wrong way to use social media. Development organizations and NGOs should, however, keep in mind that social media best practices may not be the best practice for every organization. Talking to new social media users, I often hear that they think they don’t have content appropriate to post on social media platforms because they don’t want to sound too serious. If you’re working on a serious subject, a serious post on a social media platform is OK. In fact, your fans and followers want your information and they don’t want their time to be wasted with updates that are not on message.

Also, don’t leave social media to an intern or volunteer. Social media is a proven, effective tool – but one that takes time to master – so make sure a staff member is empowered to spend sufficient time on social media efforts and also empowered to make decisions about how to word online content and when/how to post it.

To read the article on DevEx, please click here.

To know more about the UN and its work around the world, read our newly-released book: “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place.” The book is available online at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-United-Nations-Andreas-Warburg/dp/0615467105). Click here for a review.

UNITED NATIONS — The Palestinians want the United Nations to recognize a state. And the island nation of Tuvalu wants the United Nations to act — now — to keep their state above water. The high drama surrounding the historic Palestinian bid for statehood has to a degree overshadowed other issues facing the U.N. General Assembly, which Saturday heard from the leaders of island nations where the impact of climate change is already having a profound effect.

They argue that the U.N. is moving too slowly despite many initiatives designed to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. U.N. officials have recognized climate change as the greatest environmental threat to the planet but efforts to slow its inexorable progress have foundered.

The message Saturday from island leaders was that there is little time left for concerted action that could prevent their small, vulnerable countries from facing severe problems, or worse, as sea levels rise and flooding and storm activity increases.

To read the article in its entirety, please click here.

To watch US President Barack Obama’s address to the United Nations, visit the UN Webcast website: http://www.unmultimedia.org/tv/webcast/index.html

For a transcript, please click here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/09/21/remarks-president-obama-address-united-nations-general-assembly

To know more about the UN and its work around the world, read our newly-released book: “Heroes of the United Nations: men and women who made the world a better place.” The book is available online at Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Heroes-United-Nations-Andreas-Warburg/dp/0615467105). Click here for a review.