Rio+20: “A failure of epic proportions”?

The Rio+20 Summit is over and it has gained the nickname of "Rio Minus 20," or "Rio Plus 20 Minus 40".

The final statement (of 283 paragraphs!) seems to leave most of the participants of the Rio summit unhappy: the text uses 60 times "reaffirm" and only 5 times "decide" and it has been defined by Mr. Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace International, the "longest suicide note in history". The outcome of the meeting appears to lack vision and to bluntly "reaffirm that what we did 20 years ago is now considered a success", as Mr Khor of the U.N. Committee on Development Policy.

The summit decided to establish "a universal intergovernmental high level political forum" to replace another U.N. commission. It also made a clear move against the institution of a global fund to support development and a shift towards a green economy while it strongly promoted public-private partnerships and private investments.

Do the conclusion of the Summit meet our expectations? Is Mr. Naidoo right calling it "A failure of epic proportions"? Or was this the best possible outcome?

Check the final report http://j.mp/M7smnv and share your view!

2 Answers

1. Dear Fabian, Thanks for your comment and for bringing the issue of coordination explicitly in the discussion. Environmental issues are crosscutting and should be addressed by the joint effort of all parties (ministries, specialized organizations, etc) involved in the various sectors that relate to the environment. That might be the reason that leads to broad, not action-oriented commitments. And that might also be why the Rio+20 forum decided to set sustainable development goals… but there was no agreement on such gals! On the other side, Fora like Rio+20 try, in principle, to bring all parties together in the dialogue. And at least the governments recognized changes in production and consumption patterns are necessary, within al nations, to achieve sustainable global development. Not much more than a commitment, I agree, but is this maybe a first step towards recognizing the importance of environment in policies and actions at country level? Best regards, Claudia

2. Hmm well, yes one could say so, A big failure. I was working in the CBD and one of its issues is that "Biodiversity" is about everything and nothing. Everybody finds it somehow nice to have, but when costs and economics arise, well then biodiversity is quickly in the defence again. These conventions Rio and +20 cover way too much to produce concrete steps, while smaller ones like Ramsar (wetlands) and CMS (migration) are much more on the point, and way closer to concrete recommendations. I also see that many of the destructive drivers, such as agriculture, traffic, population growth are actually quite absent from the discussion at CBD. There, the Environmental Ministries meet, and not the Traffic or Economics departments. So they decide one thing while the others do something else. Wont work! best Fabian