Tag Archives: rio+20

by | 2012-05-08 · 12:15

Brazil: Peoples’ Alternative Summit to Boycott Gov’t “Dialogues” prior to Rio+20 Summit

Note: Climate Connections will be in Rio in June to cover the activities inside and outside of the Rio+20 Summit and the Peoples’ Alternative Summit.
Against the Green Economy and the Commodification of Nature!
–The GJEP Team
The Summit will not participate in Rio+20 preparatory event organized by the Brazilian government
Cross-Posted from Cupula dos Povos
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Regarding the invitation made to the Brazilian Civil Society Facilitation Committee at Rio+20 (CSFC) to participate to the Dialogues for Sustainable Development (DSD), we inform that :
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During the last decades, networks and entities that compose the CSFC and organize the People’s Summit during Rio+20 for the Social and Environmental Justicehave fought – and keep on doing it – for the opening of participative and dialogue spaces aiming to conquest public policies improving the democratization of States, Social and Environmental Justice, and fair distribution of incomes and wealth.
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Thanks to the social participation and to the dialogue between State and society, we have won important victories, that can be found in certain programs and policies that answer, although still weakly, to the people historical demands to fight inequalities. That is why we believe and invest in dialogue as one of the fundamental methods to push forward our demands. We will keep on trying to set up dialogues aiming at pressuring the Brazilian government, in order to respond our demands, as we are conscious that the Brazilian society is penetrated by conflicts of interest and that the role of each sector is to express their interests, while the government’s is to take these pressures into account and to make choices in terms of investments and policies.
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According to us, the method set up by the DSD does not match this dialogue dynamic that we are trying to push forward. The DSD proposal was built up in a top-down approach, as the Brazilian government chose the themes, participants and facilitators, clearly showing that the Dialogues and their results would be controlled by the government itself. Conscious that the debated themes are objects of conflicts and heterogeneous visions, the method that consists in defining three recommendations per theme, chosen in a closed way, clearly means taking exclusive positions in a context in which we have no chance to influence the decision-making process. To take part to this dynamic means giving a free hand to the “civil society recommendations”, on whose results we wouldn’t have had the minimum impact.
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The People’s Summit in Rio+20 for the Social and Environmental Justice during Rio+20 is an autonomous space, critical of the Official Conference’s agenda, and of the big corporations.
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We have resistance positions and proposals regarding all the themes set up by the DSD, that express the accumulation of the organizations and Brazilian and international social movements fighting over rights, environmental justice, and against inequalities in Brazil and in the world. We will give our visions as much visibility as possible, for them to be seen and heard, using all sort of media. We hope that the proposals of the people who will be present at the Peoples’ Summit will be heard by society and the heads of state present at Rio+20.
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The Civil Society Facilitating Committee at Rio+20
Rio de Janeiro, 02d of May 2012

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by | 2012-05-04 · 13:43

Brazil: Eucalyptus developer begins final GE tree field trial

Note: The article below shows the key role that industry hopes GE trees will play in the development of extreme agrofuels (jet fuel, biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol, what have you), by manipulating the trees’ lignin and cellulose content.  They are trying to sell GE trees to the public as a solution to climate change, when GE trees will actually exacerbate climate change by accelerating the destruction of native forests globally to make room for new plantations of GE trees–which are invasive, flammable and extremely water-intensive.  Brazil and the US are considering commercial approval of these frankentrees, which is why mobilizing to stop this disaster before it is too late is so crucial.

GJEP and the STOP GE Trees Campaign will be in Brazil next month at the UN’s Rio+20 Earth Summit and the Alternative Peoples’ Forum to mobilize against the commercial approval of GE trees.

To learn more about the campaign to stop GE trees and what you can do, including signing the petition against GE trees and donating to the campaign, go to: nogetrees.org.

–The GJEP Team

By Luke Geiver | May 03, 2012

Cross-Posted from Biomass Magazine

  • FuturaGene, a genetic research and development firm focused on enhancing the eucalyptus tree, has been granted approval to begin a fourth field trial of its genetically modified eucalyptus tree in Brazil.

The Brazilian National Technical Commission on Biosafety (CTNBio) granted the company approval for a fourth trial, and in the coming weeks FuturaGene will begin planting. The goal of the field trial, according to the company, is to evaluate plantation agronomic properties and the biosafety aspects of the plantation.

In order for a eucalyptus plantation consisting of genetically enhanced trees to qualify for the CTNBio’s regulatory dossier that allows market approval in Brazil, FuturaGene has to record and present data on the biosafety concerns of the tree. Starting in 2006, FuturaGene, which also has facilities in China and Israel, began a series of test plantations to acquire the necessary data. The first plantation was planted through a partnership between FuturaGene and Brazilian pulp and paper company Suzano, a partnership that resulted in Suzanao acquiring FuturaGene.

The modified eucalyptus tree developed by FuturaGene alters the structure of the plant cell wall. “The plant cell wall is a rigid barrier surrounding plant cell walls,” explained Stanley Hirsch, CEO of the company. “In order for the plant cell to elongate and divide, this wall must relax and then reform in an ordered manner. We effect changes in the plant cell wall which allow this process to occur more rapidly, thus releasing a rate limiting step on plant growth.”

Following the fourth field trial, FuturaGene hopes to deploy the use of the tree on a commercial scale. According to Hirsch, the company has deployment plans for Brazil. “Suzano owns eucalyptus plantations totalling almost 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres),” he said, adding that FuturaGene has also formed relationships with other entities around the world to address the possibility of planting on more hectares.

The land characteristic requirement for the modified trees is identical to that of a non-modified version, Hirsch said. Certain versions of the tree can produce higher lignin yields, he also said. “But the major energy enhancement comes from producing more biomass per unit of land employed.

Along with private partnership work with Suzano and Bayer CropScience, FuturaGene has also partnered with several academic institutions in the U.S., including Oregon State University, Purdue University, and the University of Arizona. In China, the company has worked with Guangxi Academy of Sciences and the Research Institute of Forestry of the Chinese Academy of Forestry.

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Filed under Biodiversity, Climate Change, GE Trees, Genetic Engineering, Indigenous Peoples, Land Grabs, Latin America-Caribbean, Rio+20, Water

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by | 2012-04-17 · 15:00

Indigenous Peoples from around the World agree on solidarity: RIO+20

Note: Rio+20 is the twenty-year anniversary of the historic Rio Earth Summit where the world’s leaders came together to address the growing interlinked crises of environmental degradation and unjust development models–at least in theory.  They emerged from the 1992 summit with new commitments to tackle the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, the desertification crisis and to promote sustainable development.  Twenty years on and things are worse than ever.  As a result, organizations, social movements, Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and others are mobilizing for Rio+20–not just to demand real action to address the roots of these crises, but to hold an alternative summit where people can start coming up with the real solutions on their own.  This approach is critical since it is clear that many corporate controlled governments are heavily invested in business-as-usual and have no intention of doing anything but spooning out some greenwashed PR nonsense in the form of the so-called “green economy,” or as some are calling it, the “greed economy.”

This Climate Connections blog will be offering daily coverage of the Rio+20 summit–both the inner machinations of the official negotiations and the highlights of the alternative summit.  Stay tuned for articles, photo essays, videos and interviews as well as scathing critiques of the attempts by the “1%” to maintain their power and privilege at all costs.

–The GJEP Team

Indigenous Peoples Caucus

3rd Intersessional Meeting of the Preparatory Process for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)

March 26-27, 2012

New York

 We, indigenous peoples representatives meeting together as an indigenous peoples caucus during the 3rdIntersessional meeting of the UNCSD, after a thorough discussion of urgent issues and concerns affecting indigenous peoples activities related to the Rio+20 process, resolve and agree to the following points:

1. We will take efforts to build solidarity among the different Brazilian IP organizations and regional networks in Latin America in the spirit of reconciliation, and seek the help of some of our brothers and sisters in this effort [Tom Goldtooth (IEN), Vicky Tauli-Corpuz (Tebtebba) and Miguel Palacin (CAOI);]

2. We uphold and support the messages and agreements of the Manaus Declaration “INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN ROUTE TO THE RIO + 20 CONFERENCE” made during the Global preparatory meeting of Indigenous Peoples on Rio + 20 and Kari-Oca 2 on August 22- 24, 2011 in Manaus, Brazil. This declaration includes the agreement to “organize Kari-Oca 2 as a global conference of Indigenous Peoples where we will share our efforts to implement development with identity and culture or our self- determined development, … and endeavour to reach a consensus on themes and issues of Rio +20.”

3. We appreciate the ongoing efforts and hard work of the Inter-Tribal Council to prepare a site for Kari-Oca 2 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in accordance with the agreements reached during the Manaus meeting. We therefore urge the Global IP Steering Committee to support this effort and maximize the site being prepared for the Kari-Oca 2 Global Conference of indigenous peoples.

4. We further urge the Global IP Steering Committee to coordinate and harmonize the various indigenous peoples’ initiatives in Rio and come up with a common, unified calendar of activities for indigenous peoples during Rio+20 and Kari-Oca 2.

This will ensure that indigenous peoples will project a strong and united voice on the themes and issues related to Rio +20.

Agreed by the Indigenous Peoples Caucus with representatives from Latin America, North America, Africa and Asia on May 27, 2012, New York.

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by | 2012-04-05 · 13:15

Pablo Solón: It’s the time for the Rights of Mother Earth

by Pablo Solón

Cross-Posted from Pablo Solón’s blog

Pablo Solon of the Plurinational State of Bolivia on 7 December 2010 in Cancun, Mexico during the UN climate negotiations. Photo: Langelle/GJEP-GFC (This photo did not appear on the original blog post)

Victor Hugo, the author of Les Misérables, once wrote: “How sad to think that nature speaks and mankind doesn’t listen.”

Although we often forget it, human beings are a force in nature. In reality, we are all a product of the same Big Bang that created the universe, although some only see wood for the fire when they walk through the forest.

Nature is not a thing, a source of resources. Nature is a system, a home, and a community of living and interdependent beings.

Nature has rules that govern its integrity, interrelationships, reproduction and transformation.

States and society are not recognizing, respecting and making sure that the rules of nature prevail.

The philosopher Francis Bacon said that we cannot command nature except by obeying her. The time for superheroes and superpowers is coming to an end. Nature cannot be submitted to the wills of the laboratory. Science and technology are capable of everything including destroying the world itself.

It is time to stop and reaffirm the precautionary principle in the face of geo-engineering and all artificial manipulation of the climate. All new technologies should be evaluated to gauge their environmental, social and economic impacts. The answer for the future lies not in scientific inventions but in our capacity to listen to nature.

Green Economy is an attempt to put a price on the free services that plants, animals and ecosystems offer humanity: the purification of water, the pollination of plants by bees, the protection of coral reefs and climatic regulation.

For Green Economy, we have to identify the specific functions of ecosystems and biodiversity that can be made subject to a monetary value, evaluate their current state, define the limits of those services, and set out in economic terms the cost of their conservation to develop a market for environmental services.

For Green Economy, capitalism’s mistake is not having fully incorporated nature as part of capital. That is why its central proposal is to create “environmentally friendly business” and in that way limit environmental degradation by bringing the laws of capitalism to bear on nature.

Green Economy is absolutely wrong and bad because it thinks that the transfusion of the rules of market will save nature.

Humanity finds itself at a crossroads: Why should we only respect the laws of human beings and not those of nature? Why do we call the person who kills his neighbor a criminal, but not he who extinguishes a species or contaminates a river? Why do we judge the life of human beings with parameters different from those that guide the life of the system as a whole if all of us, absolutely all of us, rely on the life of the Earth System?

Is there no contradiction in recognizing only the rights of the human part of this system while all the rest of the system is reduced to a source of resources and raw materials – in other words, a business opportunity?

To speak of equilibrium is to speak of rights for all parts of the system. It could be that these rights are not identical for all things, since not all things are equal. But to think that only humans should enjoy privileges while other living things are simply objects is the worst mistake humanity has ever made. Decades ago, to talk about slaves as having the same rights as everyone else seemed like the same heresy that it is now to talk about glaciers or rivers or trees as having rights.

Nature is ruthless when it goes ignored.

It is incredible that it is easier to imagine the destruction of nature than to dream about overthrowing capitalism.

Albert Einstein said, “The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” We can’t watch the destruction of Mother Earth and our selves. This is the time to begin to recognize the intrinsic laws of Nature. This is the time to respect and promote the rights of Mother Earth.

[1] Based and my speech as Permanent Representative of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations, on the Occasion of the General Assembly Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature, New York, April 20th, 2011.

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by | 2012-04-03 · 12:30

Rio+20 and the Green Economy: The invisible resistance of women against the commodification of life

From our allies at World Rainforest Movement:

The “green economy” is a concept that has gained huge momentum largely thanks to its placement at the top of the agenda for the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, better known as Rio+20.

While the concept is dressed up in “eco friendly” clothing, it does not promote any of the structural changes needed to combat the environmental and social problems facing the planet. On the contrary, it opens up new market niches for the flow of big financial capital. Essentially, it is simply another face of the same profit-driven market economy that has created the current crisis.

A great many social movements and organizations around the world are on the alert and fighting back against the advance of the so-called green economy. The March edition corresponding to the month in which we celebrate the International Women’s Day, highlights the role played by women in this resistance.

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All around the world there are women struggling every day of the year. Since the 20th century, however, International Women’s Day has become a date on which their struggle is commemorated and highlighted. Women on every continent, urban, rural, indigenous, black, lesbian, among so many others, mark this date on the streets, raising their banners, which are countless, against gender inequalities that are manifested at the local and global levels.

Among the milestones in the international women’s struggle, we should not forget the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993, where it was recognized that the rights of women are human rights. Another key moment was the adoption of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence against Women, also known as the Convention of Belem do Para, in 1994. Violence against women, particularly so-called domestic violence, which takes place in the home, is one of the global phenomena that most seriously affects the lives and dignity of women.

Nevertheless, women’s lives are impacted by other forms of violence: the “double shift” entailed by paid work combined with domestic responsibilities, the overexploitation of their labour, the feminization of poverty and HIV/AIDS, the loss of their territories to large-scale projects, the pollution and degradation of the rivers and soil on which they depend for their subsistence. There is no doubt that women face a great many enemies, and perhaps the most ferocious of all, after patriarchy, is capitalism. The capacity of this mode of production to commodify life as a whole is felt most acutely by women. Women see the commodification of their bodies, transformed into merchandise, in the media and advertising, and are victims of the trafficking that feeds international prostitution rings. In addition, women must also struggle against the strategies aimed at the commodification of nature, such as the false solutions created for the alleged purpose of confronting the climate crisis.

So-called “environmental” non-governmental organizations and funds take control of collective forest areas and seek to restrict or even prohibit access to them by local communities in order to “preserve” these areas for the trade of “environmental services”, such as carbon storage in the case of REDD+ projects. In these situations, it is women who suffer most from the constant humiliation and repression that occurs in places where these types of projects are implemented.

When a community suffers the loss of its collectively used territory to projects aimed at the trade in environmental services, one of the invariable consequences is the surveillance and persecution of the community by forest rangers and, above all, public and/or private armed militias. Women, who stay at home to tend to domestic chores, raise crops and care for their children, become the most vulnerable to this persecution.

In addition, in areas affected by carbon or environmental services projects, shifting cultivation or swidden farming tends to be prohibited. This is a common practice among forest communities, in which women play a key role. It ensures a basic supply of healthy food for families and, at the same time, allows them to earn an income by selling surplus crops nearby.

In view of this, it can be concluded that the changes caused by the creation of market mechanisms for the use of nature violate a basic right: the right to food, and in particular, the right to healthy food. It is also important to remember that changes in dietary habits, through the introduction of industrially processed foods and crops grown with toxic agrochemicals, have led to the emergence of new diseases that were formerly unknown in these communities.

The loss of areas in which food crops can be grown also results in other impacts: many women are forced to go out and sell their labour ever farther away from their homes. But even though they have taken on new tasks in the world of paid work, women continue to be primarily responsible for domestic tasks. The work overload suffered by women has contributed to making them more prone to illness. Diseases like breast and cervical cancer are striking women at increasingly younger ages. High blood pressure, which used to be one of the main health problems faced by men, now affects more women than men.

The greatest irony of all, perhaps, is that although women are the ones most severely impacted, it is their images that are used in publicity to promote carbon trade and other environmental services projects.

We believe that our role, not only on March 8, but every day of the year, is to contribute to raising the visibility of women’s struggles and realities, as well as to support the struggles of women’s organizations against all forms of oppression, including the new wave of the commodification of life in these times of the green economy.

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by | 2012-03-30 · 15:00

Sustainable Energy For All: The UN’s Trojan Horse for Corporate Energy Control?

gaspipes29 March 2012

Note: Sustainable Energy For All, or SEFA, is a UN initiative focused on “clean” energy development in the developing world.  Coincidentally, it might be a scheme to increase the role that multi-national corporations play in delivering energy services to communities, and to decrease pressure on developed countries (US, Canada, EU member-states) to implement energy efficiency and carbon-neutral projects.  Check out a BiofuelWatch report on SEFA, Sustainable Energy for All-Or Sustained Profits for a Few? for more background information.

-Gears of Change Youth Media

As soon as Morton Wetland, Norway’s representative to the UN, opened his mouth to moderate a panel discussion on public-private relationships for the Sustainable Energy For All (SEFA) initiative, it was clear on which side of the public-private divide the panelists stood.  In a belittling tone he said, “I was informed that the G77 has deleted everything in the text which has not been proposed by the G77,” referring to the attempts of mostly southern countries to defend against the stripping away of all language in the Zero Draft document referring to human rights, social inclusion and equity.  Considering the chummy, smug chuckles this comment elicited from the room, it immediately appeared that this discussion of SEFA would be more concerned with what is good for business than with what is best for human and natural communities.

SEFA may seem to be an initiative with good intentions—to increase global access to clean, “modern” energy sources—but what ultimately plays out on the ground looks to have dire consequences.  The initiative happens to include members from some of the world’s most lovable institutions: Charles Holliday, current chair of America and former director of DuPont, also chairs SEFA.  Statoil, Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and Riverstone Holdings, represented by former BP CEO John Browne, are all there too.  Mark Moody Stuart, ex chairman of Shell, is also on the board.

What kind of projects can we expect this not-so-motley crew to promote?  According to Rachel Smolker from BiofuelWatch, “The first country commitment for the Sustainable Energy For All initiative is from Ghana, and it is a project which will construct a natural gas pipeline in the country with the assistance of a UK company that has long been seeking to do that.”  Since when is natural gas considered sustainable energy? In this case, the private sector is using the legitimate concern of improving the health of rural women to push through business-friendly mandates at the national and international levels.  Apparently that is the kind of sustainable energy you get when you put the heads of some of the largest energy and finance corporations in charge.

At first glance, it seems like the old regime has just put on new masks.  As Justin Perrettson, a panelist representing biotech giant Novozymes, said, “Business as usual doesn’t work…its all about companies doing what they do better,” and, “Sustainable energy is all about mindset.”  Indeed, so long as stopping business as usual means creating new, more attractive markets to investors and business, and the mindset with which sustainability is defined thinks primarily about profit margins, investment opportunity and increased corporate power instead human rights, environmental impact and community control.

Perrettson’s presentation focused primarily on the new market potentials for biotech (bioenergy, bioplastics, biochemicals) that SEFA can create with proper public investment and backing.  He hopes that the Rio+20 process can be used to initiate, “…a dialogue around…the bio-based economy,” which involves using more of the planets living communities in a more productive way.  What he really means is identifying things like “agricultural residues,” which are often vital to traditional forms of agriculture for maintaining soil fertility, and transforming them into synthetic fuels, plastics and chemical products.  Not to mention his apparent infatuation with corn, which he described as a, “ power plant.”

If industrial-scale biomass and biofuels are considered sustainable—which they currently are—than SEFA will serve as a mechanism to make investments in these dangerous technologies more attractive.  As no less than three panelists pointed out during the hour and a half long session, “Green [as in the Green Economy being promoted at Rio+20] is a good word because it also means the color of money.”

The 800 pound gorilla in the room, of course, was the actual financing for large scale energy projects.  Petter Norre, who has spent decades in the Norwegian oil and gas industry and is now a member of the SEFA technical advisory group, described a subset of SEFA, Energy+.  Energy+ was developed last fall by UN Seretary General Ban-Ki Moon and the Norwegian government, and is focused on creating attractive investment opportunities for renewable energy projects in the developing world.  It is inspired by the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) initiative, which is vehemently opposed by many civil society and indigenous organization throughout the world.  Energy+, like REDD, is all about climate finance and making countries, “Green Fund-ready.”

In Norre’s words, Energy+ is about, “…getting down the country risk for big international investors who live by their spreadsheets and their cost of capital….” In other words, how to get the public sector to subsidize, deregulate or structurally adjust in ways that can make otherwise risky development projects appear attractive to the big multi-nationals.  And what is the real role of the public sector here?  Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be providing a regulatory framework to ensure equity and rights.  Quite the contrary, according to Norre, the public sector needs to provide, “…a regulatory framework to have a state that functions that somehow encourages investment.”

Just as Energy+ was making me feel warm and fuzzy about the role the private sector would play in what was now being discussed mostly in terms of finance, decoupling risk from investment, and commercial opportunity, the World Bank reared its ugly head.  While I was surprised to hear World Bank Senior Energy Specialist Magnus Gehringer talking about geothermal (I figured they also would have been in the natural gas-as-sustainable energy camp), his presentation came to similar conclusions as Norre’s.  Speaking with a starry-eyed gaze about the potentials of geothermal energy, Gehringer explained the Bank’s new push, coming from the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP), to access this below ground energy source.  Drill, baby, drill.

While geothermal has a relatively high return on investment, it requires huge upfront costs.  The biggest hurdle for countries lacking access to large amounts of cash is the test drilling required prior to geothermal development.  It is prohibitively expensive and requires drilling 2-3 km below the ground.  And this is to test for geothermal potential.

But high up-front investment costs won’t stop the World Bank.  In fact, nothing short of direct community resistance will.  Magnus showed a map of geothermal hotspots, most of which are in the southern Pacific Ocean, the western coasts of North, Central and South America, and eastern Africa.  While it is true that geothermal is at the “edge of what people think about,” that might be due to the fact that most of the world is looking for solutions that are cheap, don’t require huge amounts of international finance and corporate control, and that won’t result in further ecological destruction.  As Gehringer noted, “Japan has an estimated potential…of 23,000 megawatts….And they didn’t use it because most of their geothermal fields are in national protected parks, and they didn’t want to damage their landscape.”  Well shame on you, Japan, for placing ecological protection before increased energy development.  The Bank will have to see about that.

The scariest piece of what the Bank is proposing, and about all public-private partnerships proposed for Rio+20, are the proposed private sector benefits.  Gehringer described a dream project of his, involving, “…a loan [for geothermal development] to the…east African countries for example, that they could then repay by just, for example, tendering out some of their [developed geothermal] fields to the private sector, and they would get their money back and they could repay the loans and still keep some of it.”  How much of whose fields?  When do they get them back?  And at what cost to local people and the planet?

What is so troubling about this initiative, as Ana Belén Sánchez López from Sustainlabour pointed out in a question to the panel, is that increasing access to safe, reliable, sustainable energy is a crucial issue for women, workers and many of the world’s most marginalized people.  Energy is necessary for survival.  However, it is also imperative that energy is considered in the context of human rights, not market commodities, and that the public sector­—trade unions, civil society organizations, local communities­—have a real seat at the table.

Sustianable Energy For All needs to focus on making projects that work for public utilities, and that really address the needs of local communities in healthy, sustainable ways.  It can’t be used as a Trojan Horse for the corporate world to ride into marginalized urban and rural areas to access newly developing markets.  That is not the future we want.  As the moderator made clear in his response to Sánchez López’s comments, the focus needs to be on the private sector because right now the private sector is a, “four-letter word,” at the UN.  Well, maybe it should stay that way.

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by | 2012-03-27 · 13:30

Morning Update from the UN’s 3rd Intersessional for Rio+20

Cross-Posted from Gears of Change, 27 March 2012

The Future We Don’t Want

Yesterday gave us a critical look at what to expect on the Road to Rio.  The Future We Want initiative-being billed as a mechanism to solicit public input on the outcomes for Rio+20- is looking more and more like the future that the 1% wants, and less like a future focused on human rights, equity and a livable planet.  Watching the showdown between the US and the G77 during the informal negotiations on the Zero Draft of the Outcomes document made it clear that  for the US and other G20 member-states, Big Business and Big Finance are calling the shots.

At a panel hosted by Business Action for Sustainable Development-a coalition of private-sector organizations like the International Federation of Private Water Operations, the International Council on Mining and Metals, the International Council of Chemical Associations, and the International Chamber of Commerce-we heard strategies to strengthen public-private partnerships in the context of sustainable development and economic growth.  Members of the panel included representatives from Barbados, Vietnam and the bioplastics industry.  The representative from Barbados summed up fairly clearly the line being fed to civil society and smaller nations by the US:

Transition to Green Economy will require significant scaling up of financial resources.  Public sector will remain crucial to provide funding to leverage private resources and to kickstart green economy investment.  It is the private sector that will provide the vast majority of resources needed to move forward with the green economy.

In the context of the Green Economy, the private sector is expecting to grow on the backs of the public sector, demanding support from national governments and pushing the risks of investment and finance onto the 99%.   Say hello to the Future We Don’t Want.

Stay tuned for more on the neoliberal agenda as it makes it way down the Road to Rio+20.  Today we’ll be checking out events on public and private partnerships for the Sustainable Energy For All (SEFA) initiative being promoted by Bank of America, and women’s critical perspectives on the Green Economy.

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by | 2012-03-26 · 11:03

Human Rights at Risk at the UN–on the Road to the Rio+20 Summit

Note: Unfortunately, those of us at GJEP who have been working with UN bodies including the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Climate Convention and the UN Forum on Forests, are not at all surprised by the attempt by the UN to eliminate human rights to food and water from the draft text for the upcoming UN Rio+20 summit in June.  After all, the UN is run by corporations and their greedy henchmen, just as much as governments are.  Since 2004 we have watched the steady decline of civil society’s ability to participate in these UN fora, while at the same time seeing doors open wide to the profit-makers.  This is yet one more example of why we need a peoples’ process–a truly democratic forum that enables communities to come up with real solutions to the crises we face–and kick these corporate SOBs out of the process and right onto their A##.

–Anne Petermann, for the GJEP Team

We – civil society organizations and social movements attending the call of the UN General Assembly to participate in the Rio+20 process – feel that is our duty to call the attention of relevant authorities and citizens of the World to a situation that severely threatens the rights of people and undermines the relevance of the United Nations.

Remarkably, we are witnessing an attempt by a few countries to weaken, or “bracket” or outright eliminate nearly all references to human rights obligations and equity principles in the text, “The Future We Want”, for the outcome of Rio+20.

This includes references to the Right to Food and proper nutrition, the Right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, the Right to Development and others.  The Rights to a clean and healthy environment, which is essential to the realization of fundamental human rights, remains weak in the text.  Even principles already agreed upon in Rio in 1992 are being bracketed – the Polluter Pays Principle, Precautionary Principle, Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR).

Many member states are opposing prescriptive language that commits governments to actually do what they claim to support in principle. On the other hand, there is a strong push for private sector investments and initiatives to fill in the gap left by the public sector.

Although economic tools are essential to implement and mainstream the decisions aiming for sustainability, social justice and peace, a private economy rationale should not prevail over the fulfillment of human needs and the respect of planetary boundaries. Therefore a strong institutional framework and regulation is needed. Weakly regulated markets already proved to be a threat not only to people and nature, but to economy itself, and to nation states.. The economy must work for people, not people work for markets.

From the ashes of World War II humanity gathered to build institutions aiming to build peace and prosperity for all, avoiding further suffering and destruction. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights spells out this collective will, and the United Nations organization was created to make it a reality. Outrageously, this very institution is now being used to attack the very rights it should safeguard, leaving people at the mercy of ?? and putting the very relevance of UN at stake.

We urge member states to bring back the Rio+20 negotiations on track to deliver the people’s legitimate agenda, the realization of rights, democracy and sustainability.

We call on the UN Secretary General to stand up for the legacy of the United Nations by ensuring that Rio+20 builds on the multi-generational effort for rights as the foundation of peace and prosperity.

We urge our fellow citizens of the world to stand up for the future we want, and let their voices be heard.  For that the Rio+20 process should be improved following the proposals we submit below.

On Greater participation for Major Groups

We are concerned by the continuing exclusion of Major Groups from the formal negotiating process of the Rio+20 zero draft.  Unlike in the Preparatory Committee Meetings and the Intersessional Meetings, Major Groups and other Stakeholders have not been allowed to present revisions or make statements on the floor of the meeting.  Nor, we suspect will we be allowed to make submissions or participate fully in the working negotiation group meetings that are likely to follow.  Despite the UN NGLS having compiled a text that shows all the revisions suggested by Major Groups, these revisions to the zero draft have so far not been included in the official negotiating text.

We request that the Major Groups be given the opportunity to submit suggestions and wording which would then be added to the official text for consideration, indication of support or deletion, and potential inclusion by governments.

We appeal to the UNCSD Secretary General to urgently reverse this state of affairs and to ensure that Major Groups have a seat at the table and a voice in the room where the negotiations are taking place.  Please ensure that at the very least, Major Groups are allowed a formal statement at the commencement of the next negotiating session and at every session where a new draft text is introduced.”

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Filed under Actions / Protest, Corporate Globalization, Food Sovereignty, Green Economy, Greenwashing, Posts from Anne Petermann, Rio+20, Water

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