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

[R Williams]

Herman's participation in Rio+20, and his take on what happened there, viewed from a much broader and more inclusive perspective than most of the other reports that came from the meeting, I would point to as the transestablishment at work.
 
Randy 

"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires."
-Martin Buber (adapted)
 

________________________________
 From: Herman Greene <hfgreene at mindspring.com>
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community' <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> 
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2012 7:19 PM
Subject: [Oe List ...] My report on Rio+20
  

 
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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