Rio+20 … what was achieved?

Rania MasriJune 27, 2012

Objective: defining a sustainable development pathway that leads to a future in which the whole global population can enjoy a decent standard of living while preserving our ecosystems and natural resources”

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59 times in 49-pages

“(The) final document... contributes almost nothing to our struggle to survive as a species. We now face a future of increasing natural disasters.”

- Nicaraguan representative Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann.

What is missing?: contextSilent about “nature, [and the] origins

and evolution of the global economic and financial crisis that is wreaking havoc in the world today” and undermining sustainability

– Professor Nadal, Centre for Economic Studies in Mexico

Who is Missing?the poor and indigenous communities

Declaration of Kari-Oca“We see the goals of UNCSD Rio+20, the

‘Green Economy’ and its premise that the world can only ‘save’ nature by commodifying its life-giving capacities as a continuation of the colonialism that Indigenous Peoples and our Mother Earth have faced and resisted for 520 years.”

Who is happy? Governments avoiding commitments Hundreds of large corporations

represented at RioAnd UNEP

Economics of Ecosystem Services Green Economy

This photo, of a sticker produced by Global Justice Ecology Project and Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, went around the world on various media outlets. Photo: REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino.

What about those side events?“These [industry] events are

not side events, these are the main events.”

Ambassador Donald Steinberg of USAID underscoring the importance of industry meetings at Rio

Side events (known thus far) Consumer Goods Forum, a global industry group of 650 corporations

with combined sales of over US$3 trillion, which, in partnership with the US, pledged to achieve zero net deforestation in its supply chains by 2020.

Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SEFA), co-chaired by Chad Holliday of the Bank of America. Approaching $50 billion in commitments, with 50 countries having signed on, Holliday called SEFA “the greatest public-private partnership of all.”

Director General of IUCN explained that the way to protect nature is to “harness the capacity of the markets through [strategies like] payment for biodiversity and ecosystem services,” and noted that “we conservation organizations sit very well together with corporations”.

Avoided Deforestation Partners, an international network of “leaders in forest carbon policy and project implementation, science, finance, and conservation,” held numerous events to promote market-based efforts to halt tropical deforestation.

$175 billion in new loans pledged by eight multilateral development banks for transportation projects that reduce urban congestion and cut energy use and air pollution. Launched in Rio, the project was led by a partnership between the Asian Development Bank and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy.

Where to go from here? If Earth, then sustainability is base If Livelihoods, then new economy is the

base If Governance, then accountability

Willful blindness Intergenerational crime Ecocide

Fundamentally: we are animals

What follow are some pictures shown during the Q&A

On June 16, protesters stormed the construction site of the Belo Monte Dam. They dug a channel through the earth coffer dam, chanting ‘Free the Xingu.’