Rio+20 - Success or Failure
The Rio+20 Earth Summit has now been and gone. It had been billed as a "once in a generation chance" to turn the global economy onto a sustainable track. 50,000 people attended, including 100 heads of state, but noticeably not US President Barack Obama or UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Ten priorities for a planet in peril were identified:
As with such conferences in the past, many fine words were spoken that led to a final statement, "The Future We Want". This consisted of 253 paragraphs of affirmations and entreaties, but in truth all it added up to was little more than a plea for something better.
Barbara Stocking, chief executive of OXFAM GB told the BBC that although the UN hope for the conference had been to turn the global economy onto a sustainable track, the leaders of the world "really did not take decisions that will take us forward".
The executive director of Greenpeace Kumi Naidoo went even further. Quoted in Time Magazine, he described the conference as "a failure of epic proportions" and the final statement as being "the longest suicide note in history".
Of course, one can't help reflecting that if world leaders find it impossible to agree on solutions to the violence in Syria or the European financial crisis, what hope is there in getting any agreement on world environmental issues, particularly since a number of the major players did not even attend the conference.
So where does that leave us? Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg feels that with no unified agreement, it would be more appropriate for some of the attention and money that is currently being directed to climate change to be directed towards some of the environmental threats that are killing people right now. Major areas cited are provision of clean water, improved sanitation and reducing threats from air pollution.
Others compare this line of thinking as being rather like straightening the pictures while the house burns down, but one thing is clear and that is that top-down solving of the world's problems is no longer an option.
The only hope of any form of co-ordination now seems to lie with the international business community. The president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), Peter Bakker, believes that the corporate sector offers the best opportunity for saving the world. He believes that local coalitions in individual countries or cities are the answer. He calls these "coalitions of the willing".
The challenge will be persuading investors that foregoing some of their profit can make a major contribution to saving the world.
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