Environmental Lobbying at the United Nations

This book provides a step-by-step, insiders’ guide on how to lobby and engage successfully at the United Nations. It reveals how the United Nations, which plays such a key role on issues from climate change to pollution of our air, land and sea, really works.In a world of rapid climate change, a flood of forever chemicals and plastic pollution, and the extinction of so much wildlife around the world, we need the convening power of the United Nations now more than ever. What’s more, we need individuals and organisations dedicated to making sure the United Nations has the most positive impact it can. And yet, global diplomacy can be dauntingly challenging and complex. Drawing on the authors' combined 60 years of professional experience with the United Nations system, this book contains essential information for individuals and organisations seeking to engage in this complex and confusing world. From the very basic question of how to ensure you can even attend the event, this book offers hard-to-find information to help readers through this labyrinth, including insider acronyms and language, how and when are the best times to put your issue forward to achieve maximum impact, how the negotiations really work, who are the key players and how to engage with those players. The authors reveal how stakeholders can be effective from the very first day of their first UN meeting. Drawing on interviews with other experts, as well as training materials that have been produced by the authors, this book demystifies what to many outsiders can seem like an opaque and confusing world.This book is an essential resource for individuals and organisations entering the world of the United Nations for the first time, as well as those looking to gain a deeper understanding of how the world of international diplomacy really works.

Felix Dodds is an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina's Water Institute and a consultant advising stakeholders on United Nations engagement. He has written or edited 26 books, including Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy (Routledge, 2022), Tomorrow’s People and New Technologies (Routledge, 2021) and Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals (Routledge, 2016). Felix was also a key contributor to the UN's sustainable development initiatives, including chairing the 2011 UN DPI NGO conference that proposed the first Sustainable Development Goals.Chris Spence is an environmentalist, writer and former leader of nonprofits in New York, New Zealand, and California. He has consulted for the UN, IUCN, and IISD, working in over 40 countries. An award-winning writer, his books include Heroes of Environmental Diplomacy (Routledge, 2022) and Global Warming: Personal Solutions for a Healthy Planet (2005). Chris has also served as a journalist, political advisor and board member for several environmental organisations.