Urgency and Emergency

A conversation with a delegate By Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler The shuttle to the UN conference center only stops in front of the major hotels, where the important country delegates are staying.  Hot air rises to upper-income accommodation.  After the walk or taxi ride to the nearest hotel, it’s another hour by bus to get to the convention center.  Most days I think that time will...

Earth in Brackets’ address to the Co-Chairs on behalf of MGCY

We reiterate our concerns about the slow pace of the negotiations, and about the lack of urgency from Member States to express real commitment in the outcome text. We want to call attention to the 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production, which could be a cornerstone achievement of Rio + 20. Member states have to be held accountable for this agreement by...

A Leopard Doesn’t Change Its Spots

  Thoughts on the "Green Economy" and Rio+20 by Adrian Fernandez Jauregui Published on Stakeholder Forum's Outreach magazine It’s been almost 2 years of mounting excitement around the Rio+20 conference. But what is there to be excited about? How has the world changed in the past 20 years since Rio? Has the lot of the world’s poor been improved?...

52%, Informed, Empowered, Mobilizing

by Bogdan Zymka I came to Rio disillusioned. Months of studying Sustainable Development, the UN, arms trade, treaties, subsidiary bodies, institutional frameworks, jurisdictions, trade rules, embargoes, power struggles, internal politics, people’s faces, and people’s policies left me believing that a lot more harm than help is getting done at these conferences. I would go on Mahknovist rants...