Rio+20 informals and prep-comms

Date with History (again)

Nathan Thanki June 12, 2012 0 Comments

"The Future We Want" Earth in Brackets from Devin Altobello Documentarian on Vimeo. The Date with History competition is long gone, but we thought that we'd share our entry, our vision, ahead of the opening of the prep comm in Rio tomorrow, where negotiations will resume on "The Future We Want," a document that is many miles off the Future We Really Want.

Green economy: the square ball that negotiators struggle to roll

Adrian May 3, 2012 0 Comments

by Adrian Fernandez Jauregui There is frustration and irritation revisiting, once more, the hallways and negotiating rooms of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). Despite the commonly used rhetoric about “moving forward” and “streamlining the text", progress is slow and the outcome is uncertain. In Working Group I negotiations (section three and five of the zero draft), the...

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...