SINCE 1972, world leaders have met every 10 years to address the state of the earth’s environment, and the impact of development. The Brundtland Commission formalised the term in its 1987 report, which is now commonly known as ‘sustainable development’. The representatives of various governments met for the first time in 1972, to discuss global environmental issues, at the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden. This meeting addressed the basic issues and problem areas of environment and the obligations of individuals and states.

This step was the beginning of a formal environmental movement. In 1982, the Cold War was at its peak, so, the world leaders could not meet for the official Summit. Ten years later, in 1992 the UN Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit, was held in Rio de Janeiro, which created a discernible push to fight climate change, protect biodiversity and reduce toxic elements.

At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, the world focused on implementation of old agreements, mainly through partnerships with the private sector and attempted to arrive at a global consensus and partnership among different stakeholders with varied interests. Since the distribution of the world’s wealth is polarised, process reform and green economy are the two most important issues that would feature large at Rio in 2012. Sustainable development will indeed be the centrepiece of next year’s Earth Summit.
 

Among the benefits accrued, there are now several thousands of people worldwide that have created their own ‘local Agenda 21’ to guide long-term planning. More so, the National Agenda 21, has been prepared by many countries, establishing how Agenda 21 would translate into action at the level of the nations. These strategies have frequently been developed by National Councils for Sustainable Development—multi-stakeholder participatory bodies set up in more than 80 countries, and mostly in the developing countries.

Further, the increasing numbers of businesses have embraced sustainable development and have thus adopted the “triple bottom line” approach that takes into account economic, social and environmental factors. Several big business organizations such as the World Business Council on Sustainable Development have also grown extensively. Further, several governments have agreed on having a protocol by which industrialised countries would have to reduce their emissions of six greenhouse gases by an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

There have been a series of policies to focus on various aspects in sustainable development. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity, (1993), obligated countries to protect plant and animal species through habitat preservation. The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2000) aimed at reducing the risks of trans-boundary movement of living modified organisms and ensured the safe use of modern biotechnology.

Similarly, the UN Convention to combat desertification (1996), helped in looking at the degradation of arid and semi-arid lands which has affected livelihood and food supply of over 900 million people worldwide, especially in Africa. The UN Fish Stocks Agreement (1995) aimed at regulating fishing on the high seas. The inter-governmental panel on forests, which met for two years under the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, adopted over one hundred action proposals in March 1997 to limit deforestation and generate more resources for the forestry sector.

RIO+10
The Johannesburg summit on sustainable development aimed to build on the Rio earth summit of 1992. Though the summit reaffirmed sustainable development as an integral element of the international agenda to fight poverty, protect the environment and increase consciousness for natural resources, there were shortcomings in achievement. Energy and sanitation issues stood central to discussion between the developed and developing nations, particularly on negotiating on the desired outcomes.

The challenges
The foremost concern stems from the differences between what the developed countries promise and deliver vis-à-vis what the developing nations led by India do. The major question is who should pay to clean up the environment and under what conditions.

If one looks deeper, a 2010 study (PD Sharma: Ecology and Environment, p361) states that nearly 25 percent emissions of toxic gases such as Carbon Dioxide, Chloro Flouro Carbon, and halons are in the US alone, 14 percent in Europe (EEC Countries), 11 percent in Japan and only 3 percent in India. While Japan and Germany during last few years have taken some effective steps to stabilise these levels; the US and other developed nations have not. The United States has so far refused to sign the biodiversity convention. Further, to find a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, a consensus is yet to emerge.

RIO+ 20
The first Earth Summit provided the policy on climate convention, biological diversity, sustainable development commission, Agenda 21, forest principles, and so on. But more important was the commitment of world leaders to pay attention to issues that could reduce poverty and make life better for all people. The world leaders would once again meet at Rio in June 2012 with two key agenda points. First is the talk about Green economy and second one is the building up of institutional framework for sustainable development.
As per the official version, the Earth summit 2012 is likely to provide a platform for a ‘Global Green Economy’ and can set ideas or visions for the organisations responsible for sustainable development. Host of other issues have been planned for discussion and that includes Toxic chemicals, ocean conservation, biodiversity, desertification, climate change, ozone depletion, forest protection, global temperature, hunger, water scarcity, eco-governance and so on.

What about an alternative agenda?
Owing to the poorly defined concept of a ‘Global Green Economy’, there is already a rift between the North and South countries. With the dominant role that market dynamics plays, it is the use of technology that is likely to steer the Rio +20 summit away from addressing the root causes of ecological crisis. There is a sizeable section according to critics who argue that nature needs to be measured and valued according to the ‘services’ that it provides. This can be carbon sequestration or purification of water or nitrogen cycling. In a similar fashion as has been happening in carbon trading, those who make use of these services will need to pay. Alternatively the services can be offset, or securitised in the form of invented credits which can be traded to raise conservation funds.

As per the article from Jim Thomas, there are two reports from United Nations Environment Programme, ‘The ‘Green Economy Report’ and ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’ that have set the tone for such a plan. According to Thomas, the focus on ill-defined ‘green technologies’ is also problematic wherein synthetic biology, which makes artificial microbes with unknown bio-safety impacts, is being touted as the source of green fuels and green plastics. Even nanotechnology that raises toxicity problems is being embraced for solar panel production and water clean-up. Geoengineering is also being used to re-engineer the entire planet with clouds of sulphur dust or dumps of iron and charcoal. All these are being accommodated in the broad definition of “green technologies.

Preparations for Rio+20
At the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development’s (UNCSD) first Preparatory Committee in May 2010, several delegations requested that relevant organisations should cooperate to prepare a report for the second Preparatory Committee which will be held in March 2012 in New York that would assess both the benefits and the challenges with a transition to a green economy.
 
In July, 2011 a high level dialogue on the Institutional Framework for sustainable development was organised by Indonesia at Solo. It was attended by Rio+20 secretariats, many governments, NGOs and UN agencies to outline strengthening the institutional framework for sustainable development with a view to progress towards formulating concrete proposals which could be taken.


Published in the September 2011 issue of Competition360 magazine