Felix Dodds is an author, futurist and activist. He has been instrumental in developing new modes of stakeholder engagement with the United Nations, particularly within the field of sustainable development. Mr. Dodds is the Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future. He is probably best known as the author of How to Lobby at Intergovernmental Meetings: Mine is a Café Latte, written with co-author Michael Strauss.
Dodds' most recent book, Climate Change and Energy Insecurity is an edited volume which he produced with Andrew Higham and Richard Sherman. The book is a companion book to the book Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change both argue that the new paradigm facing the world is the interface between environmental, human, economic security considerations. Dodds argues that 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.
Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change was nominated for the International Studies Association Sprout Award in 2006 for the most significant publication in the field of environmental studies.
Felix Dodds was influenced at an early age by the visions of Robert Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Dodds went on to study physics at the University of Surrey, where he was very active in student politics. He contributed much of his time to the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Surrey Students Union, for which he served as 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[1].
Early in his career, Felix Dodds was active in UK politics and involved himself with the Anti-Aparthied Movement and the Anti-Nazi League. Dodds simultaneously began to engage with environmental issues such as acid rain, nuclear power and ozone depletion. He held numerous positions in the Liberal Party between 1983 and 1987, and became chair of the party's "young wing" - the National League of Young Liberals (NLYL) - in 1985.
Dodds was a key 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 coalition 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.
After serving 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 MEP, Peter Hain MP, Simon Hughes MP, Michael Meadowcroft MP, Sara Parkin, Petra Kelly Green MP 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.
Since 1990, Felix Dodds has been active within the United Nations network, originally as Director of the United Nations Environment and Development, UK Committee (UNED-UK). This organization evolved into the UNED-Forum, eventually leading to its successor organization, Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future. These organizations played a critical role in mobilizing support for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002. In the months leading up to the highly publicized meeting, Stakeholder Forum’s Earth Summit web site was used by stakeholders as the primary non-UN online resource.
In 2000, Dodds' 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 pivotal role in their development since that time, and is a keen 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 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 firmly believes that such developments will strengthen world democracy.
Since 2004, Dodds has been actively 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 advice the Foreign Secretary on issues of sustainable development; Member of 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;
He has a 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.
Dodds continues to serve as Executive Director of Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future. Since 2007, he has been an instrumental leader of Race for Tomorrow, a public campaign to reach the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. He is a member of the UN Habitat World Urban Campaign Steering Committee.
Dodds has, in the past, advised the European Union,the government of Denmark and the UK Government 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. Dodds is currently a member of the Council of Advisors for the Collaborative Institute for Oceans, Climate and Security and a member of the advisory board for A Instituto Internacional de Derecho y Medio Ambiente, and is a former board member of the Montreal International Forum. He is an occasional writer for the BBC’s web site, and has taken up blogging at international film festivals and twittering.
"Our present lifestyles are drawing down the ecological capital from other parts of the world and from future generations. We are increasingly becoming the most irresponsible generation our planet has seen." Speech to Rio+20 Confernece May 2010
“The future is in our hands rather than those of the party leaders, and the crisis of peace versus war, development versus despair, sustainability versus annihilation, are ours to solve.”
“These changes [we call for] demand an opening up, not a closing down, of our societies. The creation of a strong democracy is one that needs an ever vigilant and vibrant civil society. The world will always have different visions of the societies we want to create, as the human imagination has immense capability. The involvement of all stakeholders is one way of harnessing this capability.”
“The work of NGOs around the UN Commission on Sustainable Development over the last decade has become a beacon of hope for changing the intergovernmental negotiating process from a talking shop approach to a democratic space for global problem solving.”
“He (Dr. Hunter Thompson) represented a set of political writers who captured a generation with Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal who felt they had lost their heroes Bobby and John Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. and were left with Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew and now President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The contrast for Thompson was huge on Nixon he said: 'America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the werewolf in us.'”
“We are now seeing the emergence of this new paradigm because developed governments have not delivered on their Rio and Johannesburg commitments. Not because the conversation was wrong about what needed to be done - it just wasn't delivered. By 2012, 20 years from Rio, we need another Earth Summit this time on human and environmental security. If we don't, then the agenda of sustainable development will be dictated by the security concerns bringing major impacts on our lives and our democracies.” BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Climate and the UN: A new bid for control?
“The next generation need not become a generation of crisis, it need not be a generation of fear - it could be a generation of hope and solidarity.” Sustainable Development Issues Network
Dodds, F., MP Hughes, S. MP Kirkwood, A., MP Meadowcroft, M.,et al. 1986, Across the Divide: Liberal Values on Defence and Disarmament Hebden Bridge
Dodds, F., (Ed.), 1988. Into the 21st Century - An Agenda for Political Realignment. London: Green Print
Dodds, F., & Haskin, M., 1988. The Politics of Realignment. In: F. Dodds (Ed.), Into the 21st Century - An Agenda for Political Realignment, London: Green Print
Dodds, F., & Roddick, J. 1993. Agenda 21's Political Strategy. In: C. Thomas (Ed.): Rio: Unravelling the Consequences. London: Frank Cass
Grimshaw, C., Hussain, I., Dodds, F. & Stringer, S., 1995. Connections Earth. London: Two Can & Watts Books
Dodds, F., 1996 Sustainable Communities - the Broader Agenda. In Millennium Partnerships for Sustainable Regeneration, Greenwich: Docklands Forum & Greenwich Waterfront Community Forum
Dodds, F., (Ed.), 1997. The Way Forward - Beyond Agenda 21. London: Earthscan
Dodds, F., 1997. The Adventures of Change. In: F. Dodds (Ed.), The Way Forward - Beyond Agenda 21. London: Earthscan
Bigg, T. & Dodds, F., 1997. The UN Commission on Sustainable Development. In: F. Dodds (Ed.). The Way Forward - Beyond Agenda 21. London: Earthscan
Dodds, F., 1997. Indicators for Citizens. In: Kirdar, Uner. (Ed.), Cities Are for People. New York: United Nations
Dodds, F. & Bigg, T., 1997. NGOs and the UN System Since the Rio Summit: The NGO Steering Committee for the Commission on Sustainable Development. In Implementing Agenda 21: NGO Experiences from around the World, [2] UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service. Geneva: UN NGLS
Dodds, F., 1999. Introduction In Strauss, M., The Dialogue Records. New York. CSD NGO Steering Committee Northern Clearing House
Dodds, F., (Ed) 2000 & 2002. Earth Summit 2002 - A New Deal. London. Earthscan
Dodds, F., 2000 and 2002. Reforming the International Institutions. In F. Dodds (Ed.). Earth Summit 2002 - A New Deal. . London: Earthscan
Dodds, F., 2000. CSD NGO Steering Committee, In Kunugi, T. and Schweitz, M., Codes of Conduct for Partnership in Governance. Japan: The United Nations University
Dodds, F. & Narain, S., 2000. Challenges for the Future: Co-Chairs perspectives of the Rio+8 Copenhagen NGO Roundtable Forum. In We Have One Earth. [3] Copenhagen: The Danish 92 Group
Dodds, F., 2001. From The Corridors To The Table - The Evolution Of The CSD NGO Steering Committee. In M. Edwards (Ed.): Global Citizen Action. New York: Reinner
Dodds, F., 2001, Preface to the Revised Edition, In Earth Summit 2002 A New Deal, London Earthscan
Dodds, F., From Rio to Johannesburg. In The Road to Earth Summit 2002 [4] The Heinrich Boell Foundation, Washington Heinrich Boell Foundation
Dodds, F., 2002, Multi-stakeholder Process in Context of Global Governance Reform, In M. Hemmati, (Ed.), Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability Beyond Deadlock and Conflict, London. Earthscan
Dodds, F., 2002, From Rio to Johannesburg, Cooperation South, New York, United Nations Development Programme
Dodds, F., 2002, From Rio via The Hague to Johannesburg: the role of multi-stakeholder dialogues, In Water Science and Technology - Balancing Competing Water Uses Present Status and New Prospects, [5]. Stockholm, IWA Publishing
Dodds, F., with Strauss M., March 2004 and 2006, How to Lobby at Intergovernmental Meetings or Mine is a Café Latte, London, Earthscan
Dodds, F., 2004 and 2006, Preface, in Plain Language Guide to the World Summit on Sustainable Development, London Earthscan
Dodds, F and Pippard, T., (Ed.), March 2005, Environment and Human Security — An Agenda for Change. London: Earthscan
Dodds, F. and Pippard, T., 2005, An Agenda for Change, In Environment and Human Security — An Agenda for Change. London Earthscan
Sherman, R., Peer, J., Dodds, F., and Figueroa Kupcu, M., 2006, Strengthening The Johannesburg Implementation Track [6], Considerations for Enhancing the Commission on Sustainable Development’s Multi Year Programme of Work. London Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future
Dodds, F., Peer, J., Sherman, R., 2006. Some Way, But Not All Way on UN Reform, [7], on the BBC web site.
Dodds, F., 2007, Emerging Stakeholder Democracy: A New Style of Diplomacy, In Cooper, A. and Hocking B., Worlds Apart? Exploring the Interface between Governance and Diplomacy. Japan, Unite Nations University
Dodds, F., Strauss, M., Howell, M., & Onestini, M., 2007, Negotiating and Implementing MEAs: A Manual for NGOs, Nairobi UNEP
Dodds F., Sherman, R., 2007, Climate and the UN: A new bid for control?, [8], on the BBC web site
Dodds, F., 2007, Foreword, In NGO Diplomacy: The Influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in International Environmental Negotiations, Edited by Michele M. Betsill and Elisabeth Corell, MIT Press
Dodds, F., Strauss, M., 2008, Sacrificing the Millennium Goals would be a real crisis [9] on the BBC web site
Dodds, F., Osborn, D., Stoddart, H., Strandenaes, J.G., 2008, Donostia Declaration on Rio+20 Stakeholder Forum for a Sustainable Future
Dodds, F., Higham, A., and Sherman, R., (Ed.) 2009, Climate and Energy Insecurity. London, Earthscan
Dodds, F., Sherman, R., 2009, A multilateral system for climate and energy security: what roles for existing institutions? In Climate Change and energy Insecurity. London, Earthscan
Dodds, F., Strauss M., 2009, Dreaming of a green Christmas [10] on the BBC web site
Dodds, F., Strong, M., 2010, Reviving the Spirit of Rio [11] on the BBC web site
