Hopes for a Game Change at the Conference Appear To Be Dash Before It Even Started

By Cynthia Taylor

Twenty years ago the historic “Earth Summit” was held in Rio de Janeiro, and now in 2012 the leaders and stakeholders of the international community have converged on the city, the idea is to renew their commitments to sustainable development. But the hopes for the conference to be the ‘game-changer’ appear to be dashed before it has begun.

Three days of discussions with government, NGO’, Business representatives, Journalists gathered to discuss theGreen global economy as well as promoting international coordination on policies of sustainable development. The major aim is to get governments to form an agreement on a document called “Focused political document” which is to invigorate global environmental initiatives, after there have been decades of sporadic action which has failed to halt the ecological degradation.

The first Rio Summit was hailed as a huge success; it raised public awareness with regards to environmental issues and the necessity to reconcile environment protection as well as economic development. A host of agreements were created that acknowledged sustainable development which involved meeting the needs of the present generation and not to compromise the ability for future generations to meet their needs. In a path breaking document named Agenda 21, it outlined a very ambitious blueprint that would put sustainable development into practice.

At the first Earth Summit, the creation of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change the different governments agree that the protection of climate was a common but ‘differentiated’ responsibility for all nations and they committed themselves to the negotiation of binding targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Other agreements were forged on forests and biodiversity; although these other agreements were less ambitious they were landmark agreements nonetheless.

This first Earth Summit and the agreements created enhanced sense of optimism with regards to international cooperation on the issue of the world’s development and environmental problems.

Twenty years down the line and the promise of the ‘new era’ of cooperation into sustainable development globally had not been achieved. In the subsequent summits there has not be any great accomplishments on the reforming of governance environmentally or the implementation of sustainability.

The governments of the Western Countries that are industrialized have baulk at the commitments of investing in sustainable development policies that were outlined in Agenda 21.

India and China have prioritized poverty alleviation and their national goal however, they have shown very little willingness or ability to peruse the clean growth or to discourage unsustainable consumerism. The negotiations on issues of the environment, climate change, forest etc. have stalled or proceeding at a snail’s pace.

The past two decades have seen bitter disputes and promises that have not been met.

CarstenUllrich has said that although countries are prioritizing ‘getting out of poverty’ he felt there were better ways to do it.

There is a divide between the industralised countries in the west that promote environmental protection and the C77/China group of the 133 developing countries that are committed to poverty reduction and economic development. Beneath most of the discussion on sustainable development, the divide had simmered and the two groups agreeing to policies will be difficult to achieve.

In recent years western countries have had very little spare cash to help fund new commitments due to the economic climate, they are unable to fund sustainable developments in the developing countries, not even able to incur the initial costs with regards to greening global capitalism.

The signs from the meetings in preparation for the Rio+20 are that the two groups are simmering on the surface and that momentous change is very remote. The industrialized countries are unwilling to commit to $US30-100 billion annually that is required to green development economies.

The F77/China group has walked out of several sessions; they claim that the talk of green economy places a break on development without any firm commitment from Western Countries.

The process has been slow on the negotiations text that is to be presented at the conference, the water and energy pledges have been weakened in order to move the process forward during the final days.

Environmentalists are concerned that with all the haggling the environment will be forgotten they say that the unambitious agreements do not do much to fix the problems in the environment, in fact they point out that the environment is missing from the conference title.

If the Rio+20 goes the same way the last few summit have gone with weak declarations as well as incremental changes, then there must be bold leadership from western governments as well as the emerging countries such as India, Brazil and China, there will have to be a shared discovery of interest to forge a cooperative path geared towards shared sustainability in the long term. They will have to recognize the connection between human development and an environment that is healthy.

The Rio+20 will host thousands of people who will be pushing the governments to work for ambitious goals and concrete action. Should a renewed partnership and agreements that are meaningful be achieved, then Rio+20 might be the beginning towards a new era of sustainable development. It definitely cannot wait until Rio+40 arrive.