A moderated dialogue took place at the 2nd meeting of the High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development to address the emerging challenges that will affect future generations. Making reference to Rio+20 ‘The Future We Want’ report, Mr. Mcbean affirmed the need to promote intergenerational solidarity for the achievement of sustainable development. He highlighted the negative impacts of climate change, particularly loss of biodiversity and frequent disasters, deteriorate the quality of life in a global and intergenerational scale. Taking into account uncertainty always exists, he demanded a sense of reality and adoption of better risk management.

Mr. Nakicenovic saw education as the critical tool for human capacity building. He urged for sustainability revolution to proceed at a greater speed and, by all means through SDGs, universal access of energy, sanitation and education beyond 2030 can be achieved to fully eliminate inequality across all scales in future generations. Mr. Daives introduced the Wales Bill to illustrate good governance and decision-making for the long term. He quoted “the Bill has the power to resolve intergenerational challenges beyond the term of one government and beyond the scope of government alone”. The mechanisms of the Bill includes the setting of national long-term development goals, the requirement of public settings to demonstrate how their policies can meet national long-term goals and establishment of an independent future generation commissioner with legal power to advocate for the long-term.

Mr. Szabo discussed the role of national institutions in safeguarding future generations. He highlighted both industrialized and developing countries suffering from important structure problem and national institutions can initiate public dialogue on the long-term wellbeing of society, help cultivate environmental literacy and help the national implementation of UN Policies in the safeguarding of the needs of future generation. Finally, he pointed out many institutions adopted the Budapest Memorandum to promote the spread of national institutions for future generations and to safeguard their interest in the SDGs target.

Meeting Title: Ideas and trends that can shape the lives of present and future generations
Speakers: Mr. Gordon McBean , President-elect, International Council for Science; Mr. Nebojsa Nakicenovic , Deputy Director of IIASA, Director of Global Energy Assessment, and professor of Vienna University of Technology; Mr. Peter Davies, Sustainable Futures Commissioner for Wales, UK; Mr. Marcel Szabó , Deputy-Commissioner for Fundamental Rights Responsible for the Protection of the Interest of Future Generations, Hungary; Ms. Catherine Pearce , World Future Council
Location: Trusteeship Council, UNHQ, New York
Date: 1 July 2014
Written by WIT representative: Tracy Lau
Edited by Wit Representative: Aslesha Dhillon