Civil society plays an important role as Stockholm+50 approaches

Stockholm+50 will focus on increasing engagement relating to the 2030 Agenda and promoting sustainable recovery after the pandemic. An important part of the preparations, both nationally and globally, is to safeguard voices within civil society.

When Minister for Climate and the Environment Annika Strandhäll met representatives from 15 youth organisations, she indicated that Stockholm+50 is an opportunity to consider what is going well, what can be improved and what we can do to meet the SDGs and ensure a fair and inclusive transition after the pandemic.

The youth organisations conveyed, among other things, that Stockholm+50 should highlight ecocide and discuss matters that were not examined at COP26, using a holistic approach and focusing on synergies. They also stated that is important to enable as many people as possible to take part in Stockholm+50, not least those who are most affected by climate change, such as indigenous peoples and young people.

Youth engagement in Stockholm+50 will be utilised in several ways. The Youth Task Force network was created during COP26 and consists of about 50 young people from various parts of the world, of whom 4 are from Sweden. They are collecting viewpoints that will be compiled in a report and become an important part of the background data for Stockholm+50.

Around 40 civil society organisations took part in the meeting with State Secretary Anders Grönvall and Ambassador Johanna Lissinger Peitz. They primarily represented the areas of the environment, human rights, municipalities and regions as well as indigenous peoples.

Anders Grönvall highlighted that Stockholm+50 is strengthened by Sweden's high level of international credibility due to its environmental objectives, the connection between environment and development policy and its concrete environmental action. Another success factor is that Swedish innovations and solutions are exported around the world.

The consultation participants discussed several different priorities in the run-up to Stockholm+50, for example human rights, gender equality and indigenous peoples as well as questions of the business sector’s responsibilities, sustainable consumption and production, the connection between climate and water, and between security and conflict.

Johanna Lissinger Peitz confirmed that Stockholm+50 has a broad mandate that makes it possible to highlight issues that are not always on the environmental agenda, but that the subject matter is affected by a global process that is developing the meeting from the outside in through informal dialogues, national consultations and international working groups. Host countries Sweden and Kenya along with UNEP have initiated international working groups, which is a new working method within the UN. The first meeting will take place in the middle of February.

The ambition is that Stockholm+50 will be a step along the way and advance certain issues in between the COP26 and COP27 climate meetings in 2021 and 2022, as well as with a view to the Summit of the Future in 2023, which is connected to the UN’s Secretary-General’s report Our Common Agenda.