Rio + 20: The Path Forward
October 17, 2012
Link to video/audio:mms://128.220.242.235/media2/128.220.181.209_1210172106178a6fe328hi.asf
By Andrea Martinez,
Fellow, Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)
The concept of sustainable development was derived from the concept of ecological economics and popularized in the 1987 report Our Common Future written by the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission). Five years later, the Brazilian government hosted in Rio de Janeiro the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit. Seventeen years later, 2009, the UN General Assembly agreed to hold a second Rio conference, marking the two-decade mark after the first – thus “Rio+20”. Various countries originally resisted the proposal to hold Rio+20 – due to conference fatigue, concerns about how scarce financial and other resources could best be used, and the risk of distraction from high-priority bilateral and regional efforts – but all eventually agreed.
The Brazilian government hosted Rio+20 in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012. The objective was to renew political commitments to sustainable development that were originally made in 1992 (i.e., reduce poverty, advance social equity, ensure environmental protection, etc). Also, it was an opportunity to assess the progress and implementation of previous commitments, while identifying gaps or emerging issues necessary to address sustainable development. Consequently, two themes were chosen: green economy and the institutional framework for sustainable development.
The formal outcome of Rio+20 is a 283-paragraph document – The Future We Want. This instrument, which is not legally binding, reaffirms many pre-existing principles and values, and contains many goals of great potential (e.g., strengthening UNEP) but also has notable omissions (such as women’s reproductive health). Meanwhile, in the so-called informal space, more than 700 voluntary sustainable development commitments – mobilizing an estimated 513 billion dollars – and an unknown number of new partnerships resulted from Rio+20.
Nevertheless Rio+20 is generally perceived as a failure. On October 17, 2012, I had the pleasure of deliberating this assessment as a participant on a panel event hosted by the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) at John Hopkins University – School for Advanced International Studies on, Rio+20 The Path Forward. Daniel Magraw, a Fellow-in-Residence of FPI moderated the panel. The panel consisted of a representative from the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Program Regional Office of North America (UNEP-RONA), the United States Department of State, the Access Initiative from the World Resources Institute. Like me, a Fellow from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), all of the panelists had participated actively in the preparations for Rio+20 and at the conference itself. Most had also taken part in previous global UN conferences and summits.
A common theme that emerged from the panel was that Rio+20 is part of a process, it is not an end-point, and thus it is too early to assess the ultimate success.
Panelist Charles Di Leva, Chief Counsel for the Environmental and International Law Unit of the World Bank, reminded the audience that Rio+20 was up against The Earth Summit where the outcome consisted of: (1) the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development; (2) Agenda 21; (3) the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; (4) the Convention on Biological Diversity; and (5) the Statement of Forest Principles. The Earth Summit is a high threshold because, amongst governments, reaching a legally binding environmental agreement nowadays appears almost impossible.
Lalanath De Silva, Director of The Access Initiative for the World Resources Institute, pointed out that in 1992 many people perceived the Earth Summit to be a failure – illustrated through a 1992 quote from the NY Times – and yet today many agree that it was a step forward. Lalanath De Silva also noted that among the various commitments made at Rio+20, ten Latin American countries have decided to create a binding agreement on transparency, alike the Aarhus Convention – this would be a step forward towards the practice of sustainable development.
Larry Gumbiner, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the environment, noted the critical importance to sustainable development of improving governance, including via increased transparency and more effective ways of involving civil society. In agreeing with these comments and describing my own impressions as a first-time participant in a global conference, I said that I had been struck by the lack of civil society access to the negotiations at Rio+20 itself; though I also noted that CIEL and other NGOs ensured that good language on human rights was included in the outcome document despite countries not agreeing to recognize the right to a healthy environment.
Amongst the various proposals in The Future We Want, panelists drew attention to exploring ways of measuring national wealth and progress other than using Gross National Product (GNP) measures and setting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Amy Fraenkel, Regional Director for UNEP RONA, emphasized the importance of participating in the process of setting the SDGs.
Panelists and members of the audience lauded the creation by the Natural Resources Defense Council of the “Cloud of Commitments” on the web, which memorializes many important commitments made in connection with Rio+20. Program participants also emphasized the importance of ensuring accountability regarding these commitments, fostering, and monitoring the partnerships that also emerged from Rio+20. It was also noted that Rio+20’s process of building on these commitments, adding to them, and forming partnerships continues.
In conclusion, the take-away message is that Rio+20 is far from the failure that many claim it to be. On the contrary, the ultimate outcome of The Future We Want, the more than 700 commitments, and newly formed partnerships lies in the hands of each global citizen and of the international community more generally. It is true that governments, as a group, at Rio+20 failed to commit to specific actions to tackle sustainable development; but it is also true that amongst civil society, corporations, and several governments action is taking place. The Future We Want provides recognition, affirmations, encouragement, and various proposals towards the critical need to carry out sustainable development practices. In return, society has the responsibility to respond and to carry out the necessary steps to ensure “The Future We Want” – this includes international law, e.g. ensuring transparency and accountability – to help Rio+20 move beyond mere hortatory and precatory statements.