Saturday June 23, 2012

Rio+20 Summit: hope for some, frustration for many

"Rio+20 bore enormous hope to take strong note of issues like climate change, dangers to biodiversity, poverty eradication and social justice. It was seen as the summit to ensure follow up actions on the commitments made in the 1992 Rio Summit to tackle the issues of Climate Change and Biodiversity because global emissions have risen by 48%, 300m hectares of forest have been cleared and the population has increased by 1.6 billion people since then. Despite a statistical reduction in poverty across the globe, one in every six people is yet malnourished."

The final 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 7bn to 9bn by 2050’, says a report titled ‘Rio+20 Summit: campaigners decry final document’, of ‘The Guardian’ newspaper.

Scathing about the outcome of the Summit that was projected to take the role of green saviour, Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo termed the summit a failure of epic proportions while saying, ‘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.’

Primary issues lost focus

Rio+20 bore enormous hope to take strong note of issues like climate change, dangers to biodiversity, poverty eradication and social justice. It was seen as the summit to ensure follow up actions on the commitments made in the 1992 Rio Summit to tackle the issues of Climate Change and Biodiversity because global emissions have risen by 48%, 300m hectares of forest have been cleared and the population has increased by 1.6 billion people since then. Despite a statistical reduction in poverty across the globe, one in every six people is yet malnourished.

‘While the problems have grown, the ability of nations to deal with them has diminished because the EU is distracted by economic crisis, the US is diverted by a presidential election, and government power has declined relative to that of corporations and civil society’, said the report in ‘The Guardian’.

But UN is still hopeful with whatever outcomes the Summit could ensure. ‘Nations agreed that such a transition could be 'an important tool' when supported by policies that encourage decent employment, social welfare and inclusion and the maintenance of the Earth's ecosystems from forests to freshwaters’, said the UN in a press release. Wishing that the outcome document would guide the world on to a more sustainable path, the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon said, ‘Our job now is to create a critical mass. The road ahead is long and hard.’

Calling upon representatives from all member nations, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said it was a time to be optimistic. ‘A more prosperous future is within our reach, a future where all people benefit from sustainable development no matter who they are or where they live.’

Expressing his frustration over the outcomes of the summit, the Nicaraguan representative Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann said, ‘Our final document is an opportunity that has been missed. It contributes almost nothing to our struggle to survive as a species. We now face a future of increasing natural disasters.’

Many of the delegates like European commissioner for environment Janez Potočnik were still optimistic while opining that the agreement, even though didn’t entirely match our ambition or meet the challenge the world faces, is an important step forward.

Divided on issues: Rich versus Poor Nations

While the main outcome of the conference is the plan to find and decide the sustainable development goals (SDGs), negotiators were unable to agree on themes. The task is now left to an ‘open working group’ of 30 nations to decide by September 2013 which are to be blended with Millennium Development Goals two years later. However, it’s also apprehended that the new goals would make some reasons for tussles between the rich and poor nations in the coming years as it is obvious from the points raised by G77 group of developing countries in the Summit to include strong social and economic elements and provisions for financial and technology transfer.

In his speech at the Rio+20 Summit, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said, ‘Sustainable development mandates the efficient use of available natural resources. We have to be much more frugal in the way we use natural resources. A key area of focus is energy. We have to promote, universal access to energy, while, at the same time, promoting energy efficiency and a shift to cleaner energy sources by addressing various technological, financial and institutional constraints.’ Pointing that ‘current consumption pattern in the industrialised world are unsustainable’, Indian Prime Minister insisted upon the need of new pathways for sustainable living across the globe.

The Summit saw some differences of opinions over environmental issues and concerns. When the EU and US emphasised upon land and water as major environmental concerns, the G77 insisted that the SDGs must be bolder than the MDGs as the global environmental issues had strong economic and social pillars.

Developing countries wanted an annual fund of $30bn to support the transition to green and sustainable economy. Even though there were promises to enhance funding, there was no commitment about the amount, source and timeframe about the fund as Europe is still struggling to come out of the financial crisis.

Gender issues found no place

For many years there has been the assumption that the negative impacts of climate change and the efforts to mitigate them have similar effects on both women and men. However, the world has progressively recognized that women and men experience climate change differently, and that gender inequalities worsen women’s coping capacity.

As per the UN Women watch fact sheet, “women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than men—primarily as they constitute the majority of the world’s poor and are more dependent for their livelihood on natural resources that are threatened by climate change.”

It was expected that Rio+20 would give a serious thought to the gender links of climate change and bring some specific declarations about it. But the Summit failed in doing anything in this direction.

Several prominent advocates of women’s rights criticized the summit’s final document and its vague or absent wording on gender issues. Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Norwegian prime minister and a member of The Elders, a group of global statesmen formed by Nelson Mandela in 2007, called the wording “a step backwards from previous agreements.”

UN’s hope against all odds

In spite of all these frustrating facts about the Rio+20 earth Summit that grossly failed in ensuring ‘the future we want’, as the draft document is titled, "several other important agreements were also forged that can assist in enabling that transition, ranging from assessing the potential of a new indicator of wealth and human progress beyond the narrowness of GDP to increasing the level of accountability and transparency of companies in respect to their environmental, social and governance footprints," said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of UN Environment Programme adding that, "The outcome of Rio+20 will disappoint and frustrate many given the science, the day-to-day reality of often simply surviving as individuals and as families, the analysis of where development is currently heading for seven billion people and the inordinate opportunity for a different trajectory. However if nations, companies and civil society can move forward on the positive elements of the Summit's outcome it may assist in one day realizing the Future We Want."

So, probably, the UN opted for the last as there is no other way but to hope for the best from our global leadership that is divided geographically, politically, economically and on many other fronts to come to a common decision for the safety of the planet and our future generations.

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