The Greatest Challenge of 2012: Can the World's Leaders Go from Zero to Planetary Heroes in less than 160 Days?

This is published on Natural Resources Defense Council on 01/12/11 by Jacob Scherr, Director of Global Strategy and Advocacy
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jscherr/the_greatest_challenge_of_2012.html

It is the start of a new year and the time for making resolutions to change our ways. Yet we all know how hard it is to give up old habits. This reality was evidenced by the just released “zero” draft of the output document for the Rio+20 “Earth Summit”. Following a well-established pattern, the “zero” draft alone provides little promise that the gathering of world leaders in Rio de Janeiro June 20-22 will fulfill the UN’s desire to generate the political will needed to move the world off its current trajectory towards a degraded planet less able to meet human needs. Rio+20 must be about much more than just another document. The next Earth Summit needs to stimulate real accountable actions that put humanity on a more sustainable path.

The “zero” draft is truly just a very preliminary vision. It was prepared by a group of experienced diplomats and officials at the UN, based on submissions from a 100 governments and more than 500 civil society and other entities and two days of discussions at a December preparatory meeting. Over the next five months, this document could be expected to be the subject of hundreds of hours of intensive negotiations.

The 19-page “zero” draft optimistically titled “The Future We Want” already has too much jargon and repetition and too many abstract incremental promises and far off goals. Given the experience with past UN mega-conferences, there is a real danger that by the time the leaders get to Rio, they will be asked to endorse a document that will have ballooned in length to more than 100 pages. There will be strong pressures to accommodate the desires of various governments and interests to make sure that their issue or concern is at least mentioned. The few potential gems in the zero draft (my colleague Lisa Speer has blogged about the draft’s promising language on the high seas) could easily get lost in a deluge of vague promises. Worse yet, based on the record of the last four decades, there is little guarantee that governments will follow through on these negotiated grand plans.

So here is the plea NRDC has been making to officials, negotiators, and fellow civil society advocates: Make this summit different. Keep the final Rio+20 declaration short and sweet. We all need to focus on what will make this Summit transformative – let’s create the expectation that each of the leaders will come to Rio with commitments to specific actions which produce real near-term results for which someone can be held accountable.

Let’s not waste time arguing over matters that has been debated repeatedly over the last 40 years. Let’s ask the presidents and prime ministers to focus on a handful of truly international structural issues – such as upgrading the United Nations Environment Programme, setting clear and measureable sustainable development goals, and moving much more quickly to secure protections for our high seas.

It is the very first and very last paragraphs of the zero draft which gives me most hope that we can break with the routines of the past and make the next Earth Summit truly historic and ground-breaking. The first indicates that presidents and prime ministers will be expected to come to Rio+20. Our very top leaders need to make a powerful, clear showing that they are really serious about working together for a prosperous, secure and sustainable future for our people and our planet. They need to inspire governors, mayors, executives, and other leaders also to be engaged and take action. They need to instill real hope, particularly in young people, that we can make a very rapid transition to a low-carbon green economy.

The very last paragraph calls upon the Secretary General to create a registry of Rio+20 commitments as an “accountability framework.” Our hope is that hundreds, if not thousands, of such specific promises will be made in Rio on all of the various issues of deep concern to civil society. (See our list of deliverables.) And – as NRDC proposed at the UN in December – the Secretary General will use modern information technologies to let citizens around the world see what countries and others are pledging, what progress is being made, and where there are needs for more attention and action. Such a web-based directory (take a look at the mockup we presented at the UN) would help fulfill the Secretary General’s own New Year’s resolution when he said, “Technology outpaces our current thinking, peoples’ ideas and our current way of working…We have to make our Organization more nimble, more efficient and effective, and transparent and accountable.”

With less than 160 days left before the Rio+20 Earth Summit, each of our world leaders still has a chance to break the comfortable habits of the past and become a “hero” in confronting the greatest of challenges – improving the quality of human life and protecting our planetary home. This is one test where inevitably some leaders will do better than others, but we are all at risk if we do not demand that they all take real action now towards a future we want.

Notes from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development-first intersessional leading up to Rio+20

Folks back in China replied my email introducing this intersessional held in NYC from Jan 10th to 11th and updates of my experiences there and showed interests in further engagement. To my delight, this perhaps was my biggest take-home from the trip to NYC in between the blizzards hit the Northeast region. So here I will give a brief summary of what the meeting is about and its implications for broader youth participation.

If you recall, the first Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 as a monumental event in the formalization of the concept of sustainable development and the adoption of Agenda 21 -- "an unprecedented global plan of action" to achieve SD. It was also where the UNFCCC was officially open for signatures. In 2002 the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation was adopted to provide more concrete steps to implement SD, albeit in slow progress. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development touted 27 principles that recognize the fundamental independence and connection of our earth and aim to protect the integrity of natural environment and development systems.

The aim of this first intersessional meeting is to discuss the role of UN Conference on Sustainable Development, in preparation of the Earth Summit 2012 (or "Rio+20"), of securing renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development and address new and emerging challenges. The meeting will also address the role of UNCSD with regard to the following themes an green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication and institutional framework for sustainable development. It is a somewhat different track of meetings from UNFCCC -- more focus on the ideology,methodologies and implementation strategies and of sustainable development.

As the first intersessional meeting after the first preparatory meeting (mostly logistic) held last May, the meeting itself was more about opening discussions and inviting questions by member states and Major Groups (such as Youth and Children major group) around two of the topics raised previously, namely the green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication and institutional framework for sustainable development.

The organization of the conference itself stands differently from that of a UNFCCC meeting. Scientists, experts and officials from academia, prominent NGOs and relevant UN organs speak and present their understandings of the "new" concept of "green economy" and its relationship to the umbrella goal of "sustainable development," and then invite the delegates from countries organizations and business,women, indigenous people and youth communities to ask their questions and offer their comments and suggestions. There are still quite a lot of debate over what it means by building a world green economy and what it means locally. The goal at Rio+20 next year is to achieve some kind of shared understanding and precious wording of green economy but definitely also leaves room for interpretation and implementation at local level. A synthesis report pulled together by StakeholderForum surveyed over 200 non-governmental organizations and their opinions of the concept of "green economy", which was dissiminated at the meeting and online.

The intersessionals seem to lack the participation of youth -- there were only six of us there (three Europeans, two Americans and myself, despite one of the Europeans' comment that "this is such a diverse group", 我也只有在心里吐痰呸他了).Anyway, we are still all in discussion of how to bring in broader participation of the youth community. There seems to be discussions about setting up funds to facilitate civil society participation. Education, formal and non-formal, also need more devotion by the academic institutions or through national programs but also by youth themselves (as in peer-to-peer training or participating in these meetings). Kyle from SustainUS is thinking about producing a guidebook for youth involvement, so one example of how we as Chines youth could be involved is to adapt that knowledge brochure under a Chinese context. These could also be potential topics at domestic events such as IYSECC 3.0 and or at smaller scales. It is another potentially viable platform for the China-US youth exchange, since one of CUYCE's focus is also on advancing clean technologies for sustainable development.

The reason why I think getting more youth involved in the UN Conference on Sustainable Development is worth pursuing is that it is less politically technical and tedious than the UNFCCC process. It can potentially generate more ideas, actions and projects by the young people inspired by the concepts and framework offered in this set of discussion. And from actions we could potentially lead to changes in the making of policies and business practices.

The following is an article on the second day of Outreach that summarizes some of the issues in our intervention at the official meetings.

http://www.stakeholderforum.org/sf/outreach/

Young people at Rio+20 Intersessional call for a youth-friendly green and fair economy

BEN VANPEPERSTRAETE, ORGANISING PARTNER MAJOR GROUP YOUTH AND CHILDREN

A few young people from across the globe have arrived safe at the first informal. For us, discussions (and even negotiations) on Rio+20 can’t start soon enough. So we where happy to have already the opportunity to go quite directly down to business.

While there would be a fair argument that we young people still have enough time to attend and participate enough conferences, we feel we can not wait with Rio+20.

Green economy – the need for policies and finance

We are not that interested in a sterile academic brainstorm about green economy, but want to see action as soon as possible. Mr. Steiner hit the nail today by stating that “the world is not looking for a treaty/protocol about green economy - it’s looking for policies and finance”. So we should be prepared to take the risk to transition quickly to a fair and green economy when we leave Rio next year. As we think Green Economy seems an interesting method toward achieving Sustainable Development, and to speed up its implementation.

But we understand the hesitation, as we share a lot of questions on a Green Economy:

• Why don’t we talk about a Green and Fair Economy?

• Is there a risk that Green Economy can replace existing language on Sustainable Development, rather complement and even strengthen it with concrete action?

• And why do the national schemes Mr. Steiner mentioned not focus particularly on youth, when it is this generation that needs the prospect of a future and decent jobs?

Young people often hardest hit

We believe that one year ought to suffice to hash out the big details, to converge quickly, and to start putting things into action. The key outcome we want to land is a youth-friendly green and fair economy. As mentioned earlier, young people are often being hit the hardest by the ecological, social and economic crises, despite being the ones needing green and decent jobs the most.

Walk the Talk

We are ready to make own contributions to Green Economy like providing the skills we need through amongst other peer-to-peer education. Another example comes from one of the groups active in the Youth and Children Major Groups, who will organise a green business-plan contest between here and Rio.

So, we are ready and hope the readers start walking the talk. But, within one year we should all be ready to walk, and all walk in the same direction.