What hope for Rio+20?
I have just returned from the Eye on Earth conference in Abu Dhabi and thoughts inevitably turn to the Big One, Rio+20 (the UN conference on sustainable development in June 2012), for which this meeting is a tributary.
The first question is whether these mega-UN conferences are worth their enormous cost in terms of money and time. I have been putting the question to civil society leaders, and most clearly are torn between the possible and the desirable.
Daniel Mittler, head of Greenpeace’s political and business unit, told me by email that “conferences themselves are never important - results are.” He admits that recent big conferences have often failed and cites the example of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg 2002 which he says adopted “a shameful Plan of Inaction".
But he also says that global conferences are key hooks for global debates and opportunities to highlight failures and current and future opportunities.
What would the Rio summit need to do to be judged successful?
“It must support an energy revolution based on renewable energy and energy efficiency and providing access to energy for all. Governments and businesses must commit to zero deforestation by 2020,” he says.
“The Rio Summit must make the transition to a green economy fair and equitable and commit to a decent jobs agenda. It must upgrade the U.N. Environment Programme to specialised agency status to give the environment the global voice it deserves. Greenpeace calls for a new High Seas Biodiveritsy Agreement, to finally end the wild west, free-for-all mentality on the high seas end ensure the conservation of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction.”
It’s hard to feel confident that these aims will be met..
Max Stafford Smith, science director of CSIRO Climate Adaptation Flagship in Canberra, Australia, considers that the original Rio meeting was significant –“the adoption of Agenda 21 and the consequent three major treaties … were a real quantum change.”
For Rio, he says, "a challenge is to simplify the 900 or so environment-related international instruments, whilst creating a few more that get at this integration – strengthening something like a sustainability council (and perhaps a planetary ecologist position) to provide this leadership globally. New SDGs (sustainability development goals) that really link equity/development with environmental realities would be great."
Can any of the challenges we face be dealt with under current political, economic and social conditions, or will changes be needed, I asked him. If business as usual got us into a mess, can it alone get us out?
“What other mechanisms do we have other than pushing business-as-usual a bit outside its normal bounds?," he replied. "To say it can’t be pushed to get us out would seem to be giving up which I, for one, have kids for whom I will not do that!"
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