My Skills

 A Futurist

"Remember that our lives on this planet are too short, and the work to be done too great: That those who live with us are our brothers and sisters that they share with us the same short moment of life. That they want like us to live that life in happiness and fulfillment."
 

Robert Kennedy

I believe strongly in the role of the United Nations and believe it shouid be strengthened.

Over the past twenty years I have been a designer and promoter of stakeholder engagement at the local, national and global level.

Dick Morris said: " we are moving from Madisonian Demorcay (reprseentive) to Jeffersonian Demoracy (participatory)". I am a strong believe that we are in a period of developing stakeholder democracy on our path to participatory democracy. Over the past twenty years I have tried to contribute to  designing  some of the most innovative global stakeholder processes such as the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Bonn Water and Bonn Energy Conferences.

As Paul Hohnen, former Strategic Director of Greenpeace International said:

"Business as usual, government as usual, and perhaps even protest as usual are not giving us the progress needed to achieve sustainable development. Let's see if we can-t work together to find better paths forward"

 Since 2004 I have contributed the growing landscape of environmental security with three books - Human and Environmental Security (2005), Climate and Energy Insecurity (2009) and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Insecurity (2011).

Leadership

In different fora including party politics in the UK I have shown leadership and team building. From 1997 to 2001 I chaired the NGO Coalition at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development , I have coordinated the global NGO lobbying teams for Rio+5 and Habitat II. I have put together coalitions of stakeholders, governments and intergovernmental bodies at many other events. I believe I have helped faciliate the space to enable the agendas for both the 2002 Johannesburg Summit and the 2012 Rio Earth Summit come together. In 2010 I was selcted by the UN and NGOs to Chair the UN DPI Conference 'Sustainable Societies - Resposive Citizens.

"One of the successes of Rio is Stakeholder Forum"

Henrique Cavalcanti Former Chair of CSD

"Stakeholder Forum is one of the most influential NGOs"

Geoffrey Lean Independent on Sunday

"Felix is a genius for convincing the most sceptical legislator of the eminent reasonableness of the sustainable development case"

Rt Hon John Gummer MP former Secretary of State for the Environment

Writing

One of the great pleasures I have is playing with ideas and thoughts. I love expressing that through writing extensively on many subjects for newspapers and magazines. My 9th book came out in April 2011  Ahmed Djoghlaf called Biodiversity and Ecosystem Insecurity - A Planet in Peril .

"These changes demand an opening up, not a closing down, of our societies. The creation of a strong democracy is one which needs an ever vigilant and vibrant civil society. The world will always have many 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."

From Democracy in a Troubled World in Human and Environmental Security An Agenda for Change

Speaking

Speaking to different kinds of audiences and the media is a normal part of my work. This has been on topics such as sustainable development, governance, stakeholder engagement, environmental governance, climate change, water, liberal values, defence and disarmament, realignment of UK politics,  human settlements and human and environmental security. Over the years I have given lectures at a number of Universities including, the New School (New York), Oxford, Baptist University (Hong Kong), Surrey University, Duke University, Columbia, Imperial and Kings:

"Virtual water is important with present water shortage projections, climate change impacts and the globalized world of product sourcing. One of the questions we need to be asking is when we, in particular, in developed countries go to our supermarkets and buy products where do they come from? And what is the water content? Are we important water from water stressed parts of the world_ And if so why this has to be done sensitively but soon we need to start to map out what can and what should not be grown for agricultural export around the world. "

From a speech "Sustainable Development and Governance" given at Conference Democracy 2005

We live in an ever changing world sometimes it is hard to take in all these changes. Being a futurist is looking at today and exploring tomorrow  looking at values and attitudes and trends.  If we study the possible futures than we can help identify and influence the choices,  I believe we are seeing the convergence of environment and security agendas because we have NOT delivered on the promises of Rio and Johannesburg.

 Consultancy

Working with friends in the music business I am helping to bridge the gap between popular culture and the UN and sustainable development.