{"id":7561,"date":"2012-07-17T09:17:59","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T09:17:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/?p=7561"},"modified":"2012-07-17T11:37:32","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T11:37:32","slug":"redrawing-the-road-map-in-rio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/2012\/07\/redrawing-the-road-map-in-rio\/","title":{"rendered":"Redrawing the road map in Rio"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the face of criticism from environmental activists, the world’s governments signed off on a so-called ‘pathway for a sustain\u00adable century’ at the close of the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on 22 June. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the outcome document, entitled The Future We Want, would guide the world but admit\u00adted that “the road ahead is long and hard”.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Greenpeace International’s executive di\u00adrector, Kumi Naidoo, said: “We didn’t get the future we want in Rio because we do not have the leaders we need. The leaders of the most powerful countries supported business as usual, shamefully putting pri\u00advate profit before people and the planet.” Probably the greatest single source of disappointment was the failure of govern\u00adments to make a political commitment to protect the world’s oceans.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said that the meeting offered some hope, although many stakeholders wanted it to accomplish more. “If nations, companies, cities and communities can move forward on the positive elements of the summit’s outcome, it may assist in one day realising the future we want.”<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Countries agreed that they must start go\u00ading beyond GDP indicators to measure suc\u00adcess, and use tools that take into account environmental, social and governance is\u00adsues. Further negotiations will be needed to come up with hard and fast Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Countries also agreed changes to the way the UNEP works, but stopped short of creating a new environment agency.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent said the summit reached a balanced outcome and that the final agreement was “solid”, allowing countries to renew exist\u00ading goals first established in 1992 while advancing efforts to ensure sustainable de\u00advelopment with new proposals.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Some 10,000 government officials at the talks were outnumbered by around 40,000 environmentalists. Approximately 1,500 companies were also in evidence. Confer\u00adence secretary-general Zha Zukang claimed that companies had pledged about $500 bil\u00adlion to fund various UN agendas. “Compa\u00adnies are here because they see opportuni\u00adties,” said Chad Holliday, chairman of the Bank of America, who also co-chairs the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

About 200 chief executives attended a conference on ‘Business Action for Sus\u00adtainable Development’. The president of the World Business Council for Sustain\u00adable Business, Peter Bakker, announced the imminent launch of a new project to help create a common methodology for companies to integrate impacts on eco\u00adsystems and biodiversity into their regu\u00adlar accounting systems.<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

Regional development banks outlined plans to coordinate public and private in\u00advestment into greener transport systems in developing countries, including railways, buses and fuel-efficient vehicles.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the face of criticism from environmental activists, the world’s governments signed off on a so-called ‘pathway for a sustain\u00adable century’ at the close of the Rio+20 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro on 22 June. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the outcome document, entitled The Future We Want, would guide the world but admit\u00adted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10673,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[124,14,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}