Category: Rio+20

A Reminder of Reality

jvelez March 28, 2012 0 Comments
By Julian Velez This is a reflection of my time in the Sustainable Development negotiations that took place in New York City. These negotiations are called the “informal-informal negotiations”; they are a build up to the Rio+20 summit. I speak of Food Sovereignty as a refreshing term that contrasts with the concepts and environment that is present in this UN process. I find the process of the...

The Future We Really Want: The Why, and What

COA Admin March 23, 2012 0 Comments
By: The Informal-informals Team Earth in Brackets has critically examined the history of sustainable development negotiations, outcome documents, and implementation, and has found it to be, with the exception of small gains made in the implementation of Agenda 21, uninspiring. Current institutions under the UN lack the coherence, jurisdiction and consistency to fully address issues of...

What They Forgot to Mention

COA Admin March 22, 2012 0 Comments
By Clara de Iturbe The preceding day felt way too long and the tension in the air you felt when entering the ECOSOC room the morning after said a lot about what was coming next. Lengthy discussions of the Food Security thematic area—whose title has not yet been agreed upon—demonstrated that the North and the South have very specific agendas and that they are not ready to cooperate in certain...

Bottoms up

COA Admin March 22, 2012 0 Comments
by Ana Puhac After witnessing the process of negotiations on the Zero Order draft compilation document for only three days, disappointment in the spaces of the UN Headquarters is laughably apparent. Disappointment is not an unforeseen ingredient when dealing with the global political scene and UN. However, when it is implied in mordant remarks of Staffan Tillander, Ambassador for Rio+20 while...

Education for Sustainable Development and Shifting the Paradigms

aodell March 22, 2012 0 Comments
by Anna Odell One of the issues when dealing with “sustainable development” is the lack of clarity around the term itself. We have spent an entire term working, studying, and understanding text such as the “The Future We Really Want” in depth and grasping the general issues that are relevant for Rio+20. But at times, I feel as though we need to take a step back and look at what we expect...