The Cycle of Conferences

Will Rio+20 Spark a Green Revolution?

Will Rio+20 Spark a Green Revolution? 

Manish Bapna, interim president of the World Resources Institute, a global environmental think tank based in Washington, D.C. suggests that the important action will be on the sidelines of the formal negotiations. 

Bapna hopes Rio+20 will generate a "new narrative" - a wider understanding that there is no viable alternative to the transition to low-carbon, resource-efficient economies that alleviate poverty and create more jobs. 

UN’s Ban Sees Industry Advancing Climate Treaty in Rio

UN’s Ban Sees Industry Advancing Climate Treaty in Rio - Businessweek. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon indicates that the United Nations will pursue partnerships with global industry leaders to help drive clean energy in Rio de Janeiro at the Rio+20 conference, as governments struggle to find common ground on climate change.

A Sustainable World Fit for Children?

A Sustainable World Fit for Children?. 

 

Last week UNICEF commemorated the 10-year anniversary of the adoption of ‘A World Fit for Children’ – the agenda that the leaders of some 180 nations adopted in 2002 at the close of the United Nations Special Session on Children. When world leaders meet again in Brazil for the Rio+20 Conference in just over 4 weeks, will they remember those commitments and put children at the center of sustainable development?

The Rio+20 Earth summit must back peasant farmers on land rights

The Rio+20 Earth summit must back peasant farmers on land rights.

The agenda for the upcoming Earth summit in Rio this June has a glaring hole: land rights.

An unprecedented corporate privatisation and enclosure of the world's common lands – its pastures, fields and forests – is being done in the name of development. But much of it will destroy development and impoverish the poorest.

Deadlock over Rio+20 action plan fuels NGO scepticism about summit's payof

Deadlock over Rio+20 action plan fuels NGO scepticism about summit's payoff 

After two weeks of closed-door negotiations, the UN preparatory committee PrepCom has failed to reach consensus on a global plan of action, entitled The Future We Want, to be adopted at the Rio+20 summit meeting of world leaders in Brazil next month.

 

The negotiators, comprising representatives of all 193 member states, had limited success beyond reducing the size of the action plan, or "outcome document", from nearly 200 to fewer than 100 pages. The document, called the "zero draft", originally ran to more than 6,000 pages of submissions by member states, international organisations and civil society groups.