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Rio+20, formally known as the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, ended in Rio de Janeiro on June 22 with the adoption of a 49-page resolution, titled The Future We Want. Widely seen as a product of compromise between the developed and developing worlds, the action plan is said to have at least kept alive the fond hope of future global sustainability endeavors.
The document “addressed the major concerns of all parties concerned, reflected the spirit of international cooperation, and showed the prospects of global sustainable development,”commented Du Ying, head of the Chinese preparatory committee for Rio+20. Du is also vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the top national economic planning agency in charge of overall sustainable development.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended Rio+20, together with 130 or so other world leaders. Wen pledged more efforts for national sustainable development and some$206 million worth of financial assistance for projects undertaken by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as sustainability programs in some least developed countries.
There was, however, tremendous despair and displeasure among many participants—especially NGOs—about the outcome of the conference as a whole, and a generally pessimistic outlook hung over the future course of global sustainable development.
Tough negotiations
Before it was passed at Rio+20, the final outcome document was intensively and tediously debated during three rounds of negotiations earlier this year, and it was finally agreed upon on the early afternoon of June 19, narrowly made ready for summit deliberations beginning the following morning.
The third round of negotiations, starting on June 13, was as difficult as the previous two rounds, and it failed to produce consensus on almost 70 percent of the drafted version by the June 16 deadline Rio+20 leaders had set.
To avert a possible dead end for Rio+20, Brazil, the host of the conference, assumed charge of the process of bringing up an acceptable final draft for all parties at the negotiation table. The Brazilian Government has“made special contributions to the successful conclusion of the agreement,” said Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu.
According to Du of the NDRC, as the talks fell into deadlock, Premier Wen answered a call from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and expressly conveyed China’s wishes for a successful conclusion of an agreement. Throughout negotiations, China closely coordinated and collaborated with Brazil, as well as other Group of 77 developing nations.
The North and the South expressed a number of major differences during the negotiations, particularly regarding the concept of“green economy,” definitions of sustainable development goals, and the new institutional framework that should be created to implement future global sustainable development. The two camps also differed over the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The principle, adopted at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Rio Earth Summit, is regarded as a cornerstone for international cooperation.
At that landmark UN meeting, it was agreed by all parties that all countries have a common duty to protect the world environment, but they shoulder differentiated responsibilities because the developed North should play a leading role, due to their greater contributions to environmental deterioration over the centuries, as well as their higher economic status and greater wealth.
The principle was, however, challenged by developed nations. The United States, for instance, had made it clear until the final phase of the talks that it could not accept the concept and wanted to have the term deleted wherever it was mentioned in the draft. This was largely seen by the developing world as backtracking on the commitments the North made at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to helping them implement sustainability measures through financial aid and technology transfers.
General assessment
With a final agreement reached on June 19, in which the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” was put into the draft version, the United States said it was pleased with certain aspects and disappointed with others. Tod Stern, chief U.S. climate negotiator, was quoted as saying that “some countries swallowed things they did not want to swallow.”
Some people have attributed developed countries’ generally negative attitudes partly to the ongoing global economic recession, while others pointed out that it was the status of their national development that led them to set highly unrealistic criteria for developing nations’ sustainability strategies and initiatives.
There was also a belief that at least some developed countries didn’t pay due attention to global sustainable development. They cited the conspicuous absence of U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Rio+20. “I regretted President Obama didn’t attend the meeting,” said Phil Kline of Greenpeace U.S.A, an NGO based in Washington, D.C.
This was not the first time a U.S. president has failed to show up at a global meeting of this nature. Back in 2002, President George W. Bush boycotted the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, another landmark global conference, and under his leadership the United States became the only country among 192 signatory nations to fail to ratify the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which aimed at fighting global warming.
Despite the fact that the developing South benefits from the inclusion of “common but differentiated responsibilities” as well as the North’s promises in the Rio+20 final action plan, some developing countries expressed their regret over the lack of a clear commitment from developed nations for more aid and technology transfers. Bolivia delegates characterized this as “a step backward,” an opinion shared by Kenya, Cuba, Venezuela, Egypt and some other Arab countries.
However, Du of the NDRC said, “The action plan is on the whole a good one, and so is the meeting itself, in particular because they addressed the concerns of developing nations... So long as Rio+20 made progress and didn’t backtrack, or create unconquerable barriers to future global sustainable development, I would consider it a success.”
A people’s summit
While fierce debates heated up at the negotiation table between government officials, NGOs and business representatives from around the globe were also enthusiastically involved in Rio+20, both before and in parallel with the summit at the Rio Centro conference center, as well as downtown areas of metropolitan Rio de Janeiro.
Seminars, workshops, forums and demonstrations were launched as side events, which invariably centered on a great variety of sustainability topics, ranging from poverty relief, food safety and biodiversity to healthy ocean development, women’s rights and corporate responsibility. These activities, called by some“a people’s summit,” as opposed to the political summit attended by world leaders, not only voiced global NGOs’ concerns about sustainability issues, but also exhibited their great fervor in getting themselves deeply involved in the decision-making and counseling process of worldwide sustainable development.
Zhang Xinsheng, Secretary General of the Eco Forum Global, a Beijing-based NGO that hosted two forums at Rio+20, said Chinese NGOs should play a bigger role in pushing for the global cause of sustainable development. He pointed out that in the course of sustainable development today, it is no longer sufficient to rely purely on intergovernmental mechanisms. The initiatives of NGOs and individuals should therefore be brought more fully into play in the decision-making and implementation process of world sustainability initiatives.
Maurice Strong, former Executive Director of the UNEP and Secretary General of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, echoed Zhang’s view. He said compared with NGOs at the summit two decades ago, which had made a major impact on the decisions derived from the meeting, NGOs today had a more important role to play, partly because the current economic crisis has made sustainability issues a less urgent priority for many countries.
Strong said he believed there needs to be a “people’s movement” coming out of the current summit, so that new momentum will be given to the role of the people through various social organizations. “It is the people that will make the difference, as the leaders cannot accomplish anything if they are not listening or responding to what people say and want,”Strong said.
As Rio+20 drew to a close, the means of carrying out the action plan adopted at the summit became the focus of the global community. Du of the NDRC said the outcome of the conference will be carried out through follow-up actions, such as the opening of a high-level political forum, developed nations’provision of more financial assistance and technology transfers for developing countries, as well as the creation of sustainable development goals, and all these will depend on the joint efforts of the world community.
It will not be an easy mission, given the vast divergence of opinions expressed at Rio+20, and also the non-legally binding nature of the action plan itself. But since wider consensus has been reached on how mankind should live and develop rationally and sustainably, the future pathway of world sustainable development could be a more promising one, in spite of the uncertainties that lie ahead.
The document “addressed the major concerns of all parties concerned, reflected the spirit of international cooperation, and showed the prospects of global sustainable development,”commented Du Ying, head of the Chinese preparatory committee for Rio+20. Du is also vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the top national economic planning agency in charge of overall sustainable development.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended Rio+20, together with 130 or so other world leaders. Wen pledged more efforts for national sustainable development and some$206 million worth of financial assistance for projects undertaken by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), as well as sustainability programs in some least developed countries.
There was, however, tremendous despair and displeasure among many participants—especially NGOs—about the outcome of the conference as a whole, and a generally pessimistic outlook hung over the future course of global sustainable development.
Tough negotiations
Before it was passed at Rio+20, the final outcome document was intensively and tediously debated during three rounds of negotiations earlier this year, and it was finally agreed upon on the early afternoon of June 19, narrowly made ready for summit deliberations beginning the following morning.
The third round of negotiations, starting on June 13, was as difficult as the previous two rounds, and it failed to produce consensus on almost 70 percent of the drafted version by the June 16 deadline Rio+20 leaders had set.
To avert a possible dead end for Rio+20, Brazil, the host of the conference, assumed charge of the process of bringing up an acceptable final draft for all parties at the negotiation table. The Brazilian Government has“made special contributions to the successful conclusion of the agreement,” said Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu.
According to Du of the NDRC, as the talks fell into deadlock, Premier Wen answered a call from Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and expressly conveyed China’s wishes for a successful conclusion of an agreement. Throughout negotiations, China closely coordinated and collaborated with Brazil, as well as other Group of 77 developing nations.
The North and the South expressed a number of major differences during the negotiations, particularly regarding the concept of“green economy,” definitions of sustainable development goals, and the new institutional framework that should be created to implement future global sustainable development. The two camps also differed over the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The principle, adopted at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Rio Earth Summit, is regarded as a cornerstone for international cooperation.
At that landmark UN meeting, it was agreed by all parties that all countries have a common duty to protect the world environment, but they shoulder differentiated responsibilities because the developed North should play a leading role, due to their greater contributions to environmental deterioration over the centuries, as well as their higher economic status and greater wealth.
The principle was, however, challenged by developed nations. The United States, for instance, had made it clear until the final phase of the talks that it could not accept the concept and wanted to have the term deleted wherever it was mentioned in the draft. This was largely seen by the developing world as backtracking on the commitments the North made at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to helping them implement sustainability measures through financial aid and technology transfers.
General assessment
With a final agreement reached on June 19, in which the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” was put into the draft version, the United States said it was pleased with certain aspects and disappointed with others. Tod Stern, chief U.S. climate negotiator, was quoted as saying that “some countries swallowed things they did not want to swallow.”
Some people have attributed developed countries’ generally negative attitudes partly to the ongoing global economic recession, while others pointed out that it was the status of their national development that led them to set highly unrealistic criteria for developing nations’ sustainability strategies and initiatives.
There was also a belief that at least some developed countries didn’t pay due attention to global sustainable development. They cited the conspicuous absence of U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Rio+20. “I regretted President Obama didn’t attend the meeting,” said Phil Kline of Greenpeace U.S.A, an NGO based in Washington, D.C.
This was not the first time a U.S. president has failed to show up at a global meeting of this nature. Back in 2002, President George W. Bush boycotted the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, another landmark global conference, and under his leadership the United States became the only country among 192 signatory nations to fail to ratify the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which aimed at fighting global warming.
Despite the fact that the developing South benefits from the inclusion of “common but differentiated responsibilities” as well as the North’s promises in the Rio+20 final action plan, some developing countries expressed their regret over the lack of a clear commitment from developed nations for more aid and technology transfers. Bolivia delegates characterized this as “a step backward,” an opinion shared by Kenya, Cuba, Venezuela, Egypt and some other Arab countries.
However, Du of the NDRC said, “The action plan is on the whole a good one, and so is the meeting itself, in particular because they addressed the concerns of developing nations... So long as Rio+20 made progress and didn’t backtrack, or create unconquerable barriers to future global sustainable development, I would consider it a success.”
A people’s summit
While fierce debates heated up at the negotiation table between government officials, NGOs and business representatives from around the globe were also enthusiastically involved in Rio+20, both before and in parallel with the summit at the Rio Centro conference center, as well as downtown areas of metropolitan Rio de Janeiro.
Seminars, workshops, forums and demonstrations were launched as side events, which invariably centered on a great variety of sustainability topics, ranging from poverty relief, food safety and biodiversity to healthy ocean development, women’s rights and corporate responsibility. These activities, called by some“a people’s summit,” as opposed to the political summit attended by world leaders, not only voiced global NGOs’ concerns about sustainability issues, but also exhibited their great fervor in getting themselves deeply involved in the decision-making and counseling process of worldwide sustainable development.
Zhang Xinsheng, Secretary General of the Eco Forum Global, a Beijing-based NGO that hosted two forums at Rio+20, said Chinese NGOs should play a bigger role in pushing for the global cause of sustainable development. He pointed out that in the course of sustainable development today, it is no longer sufficient to rely purely on intergovernmental mechanisms. The initiatives of NGOs and individuals should therefore be brought more fully into play in the decision-making and implementation process of world sustainability initiatives.
Maurice Strong, former Executive Director of the UNEP and Secretary General of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, echoed Zhang’s view. He said compared with NGOs at the summit two decades ago, which had made a major impact on the decisions derived from the meeting, NGOs today had a more important role to play, partly because the current economic crisis has made sustainability issues a less urgent priority for many countries.
Strong said he believed there needs to be a “people’s movement” coming out of the current summit, so that new momentum will be given to the role of the people through various social organizations. “It is the people that will make the difference, as the leaders cannot accomplish anything if they are not listening or responding to what people say and want,”Strong said.
As Rio+20 drew to a close, the means of carrying out the action plan adopted at the summit became the focus of the global community. Du of the NDRC said the outcome of the conference will be carried out through follow-up actions, such as the opening of a high-level political forum, developed nations’provision of more financial assistance and technology transfers for developing countries, as well as the creation of sustainable development goals, and all these will depend on the joint efforts of the world community.
It will not be an easy mission, given the vast divergence of opinions expressed at Rio+20, and also the non-legally binding nature of the action plan itself. But since wider consensus has been reached on how mankind should live and develop rationally and sustainably, the future pathway of world sustainable development could be a more promising one, in spite of the uncertainties that lie ahead.