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The Rio+20 Earth Summit: From a ‘Pathway to Sustainable Development’ to a Failure |
27 June 2012by Antoine Pogorzelski, JTW
A United Nations conference on sustainable development was held in Rio, Brazil on June 22, 2012, twenty years after the Earth summit in the same city in 1992, to discuss the necessity of a “green” economy (an ecological one) and the creation of a world organization of environment.
Heads of state and ministers from more than 190 nations signed off on a plan to set global sustainable development goals and other measures to strengthen global environmental management, tighten the protection of the oceans, improve food security and promote a "green economy."
Many analysts consider the summit an anticipated failure, as the draft of the text is clearly less ambitious than expected. After more than a year of negotiations and a ten-day mega-conference involving 45,000 people, the outcome’s wide-ranging document – The Future We Want – was lambasted by environmentalists and anti-poverty campaigners for lacking the detail and ambition needed to address the challenges posed by a deteriorating environment, worsening inequality and a global population expected to rise from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2050.
In the midst of a financial crisis, the fear of the markets letting a collapsing Europe down, no actors were willing to say how much money they would contribute to the project. Paradoxically, the summit was supposed to introduce green economics as an answer to the financial crisis and as a springboard for growth.
Dishonesty between states was another reason for the failure, as Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff declared that European leaders shouldn’t criticize the lack of ambition at the summit since European states did not abide by promises of “green funding,” following the Copenhagen accords in 2009. At least the summit did not end up like it did in Copenhagen where a clash between states had occurred and many saw the perspective of another international summit on environment issues as unlikely.
All over the world, campaigners decry the final document. Member of the European Parliament Sandrine Bélier claims that “the draft of the text is just reasserting the commitments taken in 1992.” Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo called the summit a failure of epic proportions. "We didn't get the Future We Want in Rio, because we do not have the leaders we need. The leaders of the most powerful countries supported business as usual, shamefully putting private profit before people and the planet." Paradoxically enough as well, peoples all around the globe are starting change for the environment. At the People’s Summit, outside the conference proper, civil society actors gathered to follow the advances of Rio, protesting and marching: more than 50,000 people participated in the outside event, ranging from local elected officials to citizens and supporting companies. Sandrine Bélier stated that the People’s Summit initiative was encouraging, “More and more people are becoming aware of the issue and committing themselves to a local transition towards environmental-friendly behaviors but to face the stake of the issue, national and international levels of cooperation, policies and laws are needed.” |
27 June 2012
Journal of Turkish Weekly
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