[Oe List ...] My report on Rio+20

Fri Jul 20 00:04:07 PDT 2012

Dear Herman,

Sustainable Development on the Planet Earth is a mission whose implications
are everyone's concern and responsiblity, yet like many impossible tasks
need champions to hold the banner so we don't lose our way. Thank you for
being the one who is willing to share your reflections on Rio+20 and
continue to stand.

Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 8:04 PM, Jeanette Stanfield <
jstanfield at ica-associates.ca> wrote:

> Dear Herman,
> Thank you very much for sharing your reflections on RIo+20.
> They very helpfully illuminate the complexity of our real situation as
> human beings working toward sustainable development on planet earth.
>
> Go well,
>
> Jeanette
>
>
>   On 2012-07-19, at 8:19 PM, Herman Greene wrote:
>
>  ****************
>
> Here’s the report I wrote on **Rio**+20:****
>
> ** **
>
> ** **
>
> *NOTES FROM RIO+20: WHY IT DIDN’T FAIL*
>
> *By Herman F. Greene*
>
> I was in Rio from June 13-22 for the UN Conference on Sustainable
> Development (**Rio**+20) and events preceding it. The prevailing
> sentiment is that **Rio**+20 was a failure. Scott Simon of NPR described
> it as the biggest UN conference ever and perhaps one of its biggest duds.
> *The New York Times *quoted a representative of CARE as saying it was
> “nothing more than a political charade,” and a representative of Greenpeace
> as declaring it “a failure of epic proportions.” When the official outcome
> document from **Rio**+20, titled “The Future We Want,” is not rejected
> outright, tepid assessments are generally given such as “it partially
> salvaged prior commitments, but offered little new.”****
>
> ** **
>
> Evaluating **Rio**+20 as a failure has consequences. For some, the
> “failure” of **Rio**+20 underscores the weakness or the UN processes as a
> whole. Because blame for the alleged failure has largely been placed on
> “governments,” the faith of some in the ability of governmental and
> intergovernmental organizations to address major problems has fallen. In
> the ****United States****, where the event was seldom reported, summary
> reports of failure may lead some to say, “I didn’t know about it and it
> wasn’t important anyway.”****
>
> ** **
>
> My view of the conference is, however, different. I had to educate myself
> to understand the UN sustainable development process, of which **Rio**+20
> is only the latest chapter in a 40-year long and continuing history. I
> began to engage directly in this process in October 2011 in order to
> promote formation of an International Ethics Panel on Ecological
> Civilization (IEPEC), a panel first proposed by Professor **Ryoichi
> Yamamoto** at a September 2011 conference in ****Tokyo****. Returning
> from that conference, I learned Rio+20 was the place to take this idea as
> many NGOs and some governments were emphasizing the need for new ethical
> structures in UN governance in connection with one of Rio+20’s two major
> themes, “Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development.”****
>
> ** **
>
> In the course of attending three preparatory events in **New York** and
> the final **Rio**+20 conference, I have learned the UN’s sustainable
> development process is not primarily about the environment. It is about how
> the peoples of the world, as a whole, can improve their lives and the forms
> of development that are most appropriate for achieving this. Environment
> comes in because it must: after all Earth is the living planet and resource
> base on which humans depend both physically and culturally. Economics
> enters because our current understanding of social development is dominated
> by it and by certain established conventions, such as GDP, neo-liberalism,
> globalization, and industrialization, all of which were questioned in the
> Rio+20 debates, especially in relation to the conference’s other major
> theme, “The Green Economy in the Context of Poverty Eradication and
> Sustainable Development.****
>
> ** **
>
> I have learned that equity and security, in unfamiliar ways, are at the
> heart of every sustainable development debate. Small island states ask if
> it is equitable that they should be flooded due to global warming and
> rising seas attributable to the actions of others. The President of Ecuador
> raises the question how much should his country be paid to leave
> rainforests intact in order to produce oxygen for the world. The “Green
> Economy,” is viewed by many in the Global South (the term commonly used in
> place of the “**Third World**”) as a further expansion of global
> capitalism, the commodification of nature and a threat to indigenous
> people. Security becomes a question for many of whether they will have
> enough food to eat in a world, soon to be populated by 9 billion people,
> facing erosion of land, desertification and land grabs by both foreign
> governments and corporations. Subsistence farmers wonder why they must
> enter the monetary economy to become “sustainable” or “be lifted out of
> poverty,” and why their occupation of land for centuries does not
> constitute “title.”****
>
> ** **
>
> I have learned that civil society, largely composed of nonprofit
> organizations (also called nongovernmental organizations or NGOs) and given
> quite limited official status, by holding to ideals of the future,
> commenting on intergovernmental negotiations and making their voices heard,
> are collectively a major force in the UN sustainable development process.
> Yet I have also learned that, now more than ever, government is the
> indispensable actor in bringing about the future we want.****
>
> ** **
>
> With this growing knowledge, I have come to understand **Rio**+20 as not
> being a failure. The language of outcome documents in UN conferences such
> as **Rio**+20 are arrived at by consensus. Thus, the outcome document of *
> *Rio**+20 reflected where there was and was not a global consensus on
> future commitments. The current financial crisis (and related national and
> regional politics) hung like a shadow over the proceedings. While progress
> on new commitments would have been preferable, the central issue in the
> proceedings became whether governments would preserve the basic principles
> of sustainable development adopted at the First Earth Summit in Rio in
> 1992, principles such as social equity, gender equality, common but
> differentiated responsibilities (requiring greater responsibility for
> developed countries), human rights (including, heretofore unrecognized
> rights to clean, drinkable water, basic sanitation, food security, a
> minimum standard of living, and a social protection floor), the polluter
> pays, the precautionary principle and the right to development (the right
> of all peoples to develop their own resources for their own needs,
> interests, and cultures). The reaffirmation of these principles became the
> limited success of the governmental portion of **Rio**+20.****
>
> ** **
>
> The greater achievements came in the civil society portion. More than
> 30,000 civil society representatives participated in the official Rio+20
> conference and 100,000 more in the concurrent People’s ****Summit**** and
> protest marches. There were also large concurrent business and professional
> gatherings in **Rio**, such as Business Action for Sustainable
> Development Business Day and the World Congress on Justice, Governance and
> Law for Environmental Sustainability. Knowing of the limitations of the
> official outcome document, activists released 14 People’s Sustainability
> Treaties and a People’s Sustainability Manifesto. President Rousseff of **
> Brazil** was justified in calling **Rio**+20 the most participatory
> conference in history and “a global expression of democracy.”****
>
> ** **
>
> People who gathered in **Rio** knew the official results of the
> conference would be limited. They came nevertheless to network and to set
> the stage for the next phase of the UN sustainable development process, the
> shaping of the post 2015-development agenda in which the present Millennium
> Development Goals will be integrated into broader and more ambitious
> sustainable development goals. Those from civil society left to form a
> global citizens’ movement to take action now for sustainable development
> and to develop the political will for global policy change. **Rio**+20
> was not an end, rather it was a new beginning. ****
>
> ** **
>
> Herman****
> *_____________________________________________*****
> **Herman Greene******
> ********************2516 Winningham Drive************************
> ********************************Chapel Hill**************, ********NC*****
> *** ********27516**************
> 919-929-4116 (h)****
> 919-624-0579 (c)****
> 919-942-4358 (f)****
> Skype: hgreene-nc****
> hfgreene at mindspring.com ****
>
> ** **
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> ****************
>
>
>   Jeanette Stanfield
> jstanfield at ica-associates.ca
>
>
> The Courage to Lead  ebook
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>
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-- 
Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook
ICA Certified Facilitator
ICA Taiwan Office:
3 fl.,#12, Lane 5, Tien Mou W. Rd,
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Email: joyful52 at gmail.com, joyful at icatw.com
skype: Evelyn Philbrook
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