'The Future We Want'
abercrombie outletTwenty years ago at the first Earth Summit in Rio, Severn Suzuki a twelve year old girl, made an impassioned plea at the conference. She had come to Rio with the Environmental Children's Organization (ECO), a group of 12 and 13 year olds. 'We've raised all the money to come here ourselves,' she said, 'to come 5,000 miles to tell you adults you must change your ways. Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future... I am only a child, yet I know if all the money spent on war was spent on finding environmental answers ending poverty and in finding treaties, what a wonderful place this earth would be.' She was pleading for the rights of her generation and of generations to come. I was at that first Earth Summit in 1992. I was calling for a paradigm shift in our global environmental policies: for a new model of development incorporating respect for human rights, good governance, social and economic justice, environmental protection and respect for the rights of indigenous and tribal people. I was campaigning for governments and corporations to be held accountable for their actions.Twenty years later I am still calling for the same changes, and for corporations to be held accountable for crimes against present and future generations. Why have we made so little progress on these issues? Global carbon emissions have increased by around 50 percent since the first conference. If you had told us at the 1992 Earth Summit that this would be the case, we would have been horrified.
abercrombie outlet onlineRio+20 finished with little fanfare and no concrete outcomes. Attended by more than 45, 000 people, including 130 heads of state, 1,500 CEOs from 60 nations, with over 500 side events, Rio+20 was the biggest UN sustainability conference in a decade, and has been described by the UN as 'an historic opportunity to define pathways to a safer, more equitable, cleaner, greener and more prosperous world for all.' Why was this opportunity so shamefully squandered? While the 1992 Earth Summit was three weeks of consistent close negotiations, Rio+20 was just three days long. Many world leaders did not attend. President Barack Obama, Chancellor Merkel and President Vladimir Putin were absent. UK Prime Minister David Cameron did not attend despite the Summit being rearranged to avoid clashing with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and his pledges two years ago, upon becoming Prime Minister, to lead the 'greenest government ever.' There was an indefensible lack of political will to address the most pressing issues of our time.Chinese Premier Hu Jintao was there as was the French President Francois Hollande, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton represented the US, and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg represented Great Britain. And of course President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil was hosting the conference.From the start the mood of Rio+20 was not optimistic. By the finish, emotions were running high. Former Costa Rican president Jose Maria Figueres addressed the conference's secretary general, Sha Zukang, at a press conference on June 22nd:"One thousand five hundred CEOs from 60 nations, global NGOs from all over the world, have come to your conference and committed to action," he said. "Those who have failed you, Mr. Sha, are the governments. Those are the ones that have failed you, sir."
abercrombie fitchThe outcome document 'adopted' at Rio+20, 'The Future We Want' is a miserable failure; 283 paragraphs of platitudes and unenforceable commitments which will not take us into the 'Future We Want.' Once again politicians have abdicated responsibility for our future, and that of our children and grandchildren.'The document is not legally binding. It is at best, a roadmap containing broad 'Sustainable Development Goals' or SDGs, which echo the Millennium Development Goals. These SDGs have been agreed only in principle. There is no detail, and no targets. Even these are voluntary national commitments. 'The Future We Want' 'affirms,' 'recognizes,' 'underscores,' 'urges,' 'acknowledges' and 'expresses concern' over a wide range of issues. The word "reaffirm" is used 60 times. Connie Hedegaard, the EU's Commissioner for Climate Action, took to Twitter to express her dissatisfaction on the 19th of June. "Nobody in that room adopting the text was happy,' she said. 'That's how weak it is. And they all knew. Disappointing." The text of 'The Future We Want' was, already, at the beginning of June, a compromise. It contained little that was not on the table at the 1992 Earth Summit. Have they been able to accomplish anything these 20 years, except political grandstanding? Severn Suzuki, speaking to Democracy Now on the 21st of June, 2012, said: 'This is showing that the world's leaders are not able to come together and lead for the sake of humanity. What does it mean when the world's elected leaders do not represent the good of the people that they're supposed to care for?' Twenty years later, and world leaders still aren't listening to her.
abercrombie saleBy the 21st of June, when 'The Future We Want' was submitted to leaders, it had been diluted even further. 'The Future We Want' has glaring and serious omissions.Fossil Fuel SubsidiesThe text announces its objective as a 'green economy.' It 'reaffirms support for... greater reliance on advanced energy technologies including cleaner fossil fuel technologies and the sustainable use of traditional energy resources.' 'The Future we Want' 'reaffirms' the intention to "phase out harmful and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption.' However, this is not a commitment. It is not even a new promise. The G20 agreed to this in 2009. And we have seen no results. Initially, fossil fuel subsidies were not even on the agenda at Rio +20: rightly causing public outcry. 350.org with the global campaign group Avaaz launched a 'twitterstorm' on June 18th, calling on leaders to use Rio+20 as the opportunity to act: to set deadlines, and devise implementation to end nearly $1 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies, to 'turn one triillion green.' I joined and supported the Twitterstorm. Avaaz also took out advertisements in Friday's Financial Times calling on Brazil's President Rousseff to demand a timeline for ending subsidies. Ending subsidies for fossil fuels became a rallying cry for Rio+20. #endfossilfuelsubsidies trended on Twitter at number two in the world. It was this worldwide protest that forced fossil fuel subsidies onto the agenda on the evening of June 18th.
abercrombie ukEven after the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, which forced 150, 000 people to flee their homes due to radiation, leaving large parts of Japan still contaminated, the document fails to question or even mention nuclear energy. The document fails to discuss the shift to renewable energy: the most urgent and necessary transition of our time. Let me be clear. By once again delaying these tough decisions, world leaders may well be condemning the planet to death.We welcomed the commitments of business and corporations at Rio+20. We need sustainable, ethical businesses to fully participate in creating the future we want. As Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation told the Guardian newspaper, 'The economic transformation that shifts the production base to greener and cleaner production is an imperative if we are to live within planetary boundaries.' The fingerprints of corporate interest, however, were all over Rio+20 and are all over the text of 'The Future We Want.' The US succeeded in striking a reference to "unsustainable consumption and production patterns from the outcome text." On Friday June 22nd, Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International delivered a statement, 'End Corporate Capture of the UN,' to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, condemning the influence oil companies like ExxonMobil, Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Shell, all of which are involved in human rights violations and the destruction of the environment, and large multinational corporations like Dow and Coca Cola exert over the United Nations. 400 organizations representing millions of members of civil society around the world signed the statement.
