In the run up to the June environmental summit in Rio de Janeiro, the global response has been anything but encouraging

Beyond broadly drafted assessments and non-binding panel proposals at several run-up forums, few if any clearly defined goals and incentives have been put on the table ahead of the Rio+20 conference in June. A leader has yet to emerge among UN member states, and the fear is that Rio will dissolve into yet another ballyhooed talkfest – big on aspirations but unable to deliver specific, concrete measures.

Officially, Rio’s objectives are an accelerated shift towards a green economy alongside an improved institutional framework for sustainable development rooted in ideas of equality and social justice. The idea is to stay away from directly confronting climate change as an issue. The focus, instead, will be on how economies can grow without endangering the environment.

Priority areas identified in UN draft documents include energy access and efficiency; food security and sustainable agriculture; green jobs and social inclusion; sustainable water management; urbanisation; oceans; and improved resilience and disaster preparedness.

But, as usual, governments are loathe to commit to providing monetary investments to accomplish what they claim to support. Provisions on finance, technology and other means of implementation remain vaguely referenced, while the very term “green economy” is battled over by groups sceptical of quick technological fixes.

Already an international coalition of more than 400 non-governmental organisations from 67 countries has challenged “an apparent systematic effort by particular governments to delete virtually all references to well-established rights to water, energy, food and development”.

Rio is an opportunity to be very specific, says Dr Maria Ivanova, director of the global environmental governance project at the University of Massachusetts. Transformation of the United Nations Environmental Programme into a specialised UN agency for the achievement of green development is one important proposal now being examined.

Ivanova says a key obstacle facing summit organisers is a “geopolitically reconfigured world” of shifting government coalitions, which sees hesitant governments weighed down by competing interests.

“What governments [have] realised in the last 20 years is that the neoliberal economic model is actually threatening the very basis on which we depend for survival,” Ivanova says.

The best we can hope for, she adds, is the establishment of a kind of constitutional framework in which governments “agree to agree on fundamental principles of how the world economy should run”.

Voluntary reporting

As for business, front and centre is a call for a global policy framework for companies to disclose sustainability information in their annual financial reports. Contained in the Rio+20 negotiating text known as the “zero draft”, the call echoes language that emerged from both the 1992 Rio de Janeiro and 2002 Johannesburg sustainability summits encouraging voluntary environmental and sustainability reporting by companies.

“In reforming it [the global economy], we need to make sure all organisations better understand, measure and report their sustainability impacts, both positive and negative,” says Paul Hohnen, an Amsterdam-based international expert on sustainable development and corporate responsibility.

“This is our last best chance for setting the framework to make the shift towards a green economy,” Hohnen adds. “Let’s be clear: this is not an option. It’s an imperative. The costs of getting this wrong will affect everybody. And getting it right will benefit everyone.”



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