When the Earth Summit met 20 years ago in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil to discuss how to deal with environmental threats to the planet, the VIPs included U.S. President George HW Bush, and the meeting went on for over 10 days.
The 1992 Earth Summit put the threats to the Earth’s environment squarely on the international agenda.
No show
Fast-forward 20 years. Rio+20, to be held June 20-22 this year, may not see U.S. President Barack Obama turning up, and the British and German leaders and the European Parliament have said they will not show.
Not only is the meeting too short to hammer out important initiatives but leaked documents indicate countries are squabbling over many of the proposals and the minutiae of the language.
Desperate optimism
As the biggest UN conference on the environment in years, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon says he remains optimistic that “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make real progress towards the sustainable economy of the future” will not be squandered in Rio.
UN Secretary General Ban has to put a brave face on it.
Crucial issues
As media reports have made clear, the summit will look at how to safeguard global economic growth without destroying our planet in the process. It also aims to ensure that any new environmental policies will transcend international borders. As part of this, there are key areas of discussion, including food security, water and energy, plus a focus on developing countries – many of whom feel the developed countries should be doing more to shoulder the burden.
As the leaked documents reveal, drafting an agenda and getting everyone to agree to talk about it is has not been easy. There have been weeks of haggling, much over it over the finer points of the wording. Organizers have struggled to whittle down hundreds of pages of recommendations and goals into a manageable document, given all the vested interests.
If you want to know why this meeting is important, take a look at the World Wildlife Fund’s recent Living Planet report said the ever-swelling global population is still consuming far more than can be replenished.
Growth and profits at all costs
The mainstream economic model with a drive for growth at any cost is unsustainable. Politicians and companies are in league is a desperate scramble to dig up, harvest and gobble up resources to make profits and supply and feed a world population that has almost doubled since the first Earth Summit 20 years ago.
What is clear from the Living Planet report is that there is a widening and “potentially catastrophic” gap between the ecological footprints of rich and poor nations. Global consumption of natural resources, carbon emissions and poverty have all continued to increase dramatically. Although there are the skeptics, scientific research points to a steady rise in world temperature which, if unchecked, is forecast to have catastrophic consequences for the planet.
Set to fail
Unfortunately, Rio+20 looks set to fail. The failure will be due to lack of commitment by politicians and the vested interests of major companies to maintain the status quo and to continue to profit from practices and policies that are destroying the environment and damaging the lives of people on our planet. Protestors outside the venue will wave placards and shout but they will be impotent to change the decisions of the people wielding power in the conference.
Stepping up to the plate
Sure, there are no easy answers. The cynical might argue that maybe children should take charge. Twelve-year-old Severn Suzuki gave an impassioned speech at the 1992 Earth Summit calling on leaders to make the changes so that her generation was not saddled with the results of bad decisions.
But there are rays of hope as seen in communities around the world where people are taking the threat to the planet – or maybe their neighborhood – into their own hands. There are the groups who are fighting against mountaintop removal in the scramble for coal. There are the groups fighting against fracking. There are the groups fighting against the destruction of forests. There are the groups fighting against the overfishing and slaughter taking place in the oceans. Many people risk arrest, imprisonment, and in some countries even beatings and death, to stand up for what is right.
We cannot rely on our political leaders. At most they will offer lip service.
Although it is important to hold Rio+20, the answer to how to deal with the threats to the environment and lives of the people on the planet lies in the hands of individuals and groups willing to step up to the plate and say enough is enough.
A groundswell of people taking action is building. And the actions of individuals matter. Your actions matter.
Any force for change is composed of individuals stepping up to the plate.
Severn Suzuki “shames world leaders” at the Earth Summit in 1992
Severn Suzuki with a message for her government and world leaders 2012
