The Road to Rio+20
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The UNEP Magazine for Youth for young people · by young people · about young people The road to Rio+20 Half the planet, one voice Green jobs, green options 1 Tunza_9.3_Engv4.indd 1 23/11/2011 18:31 TUNZA the UNEP magazine CONTENTS for youth. To view current and past issues of this publication online, The Bandung Declaration 3 please visit www.unep.org New beginnings at Rio+20 4 United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) PO Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya Half the planet, one voice 6 Tel (254 20) 7621 234 Fax (254 20) 7623 927 A week of inspiration 6 Telex 22068 UNEP KE E-mail [email protected] We were there! 7 www.unep.org In with the new 8 ISSN 1727-8902 Six minutes to save the Earth 10 Director of Publications Nick Nuttall Editor Geoffrey Lean Earth Summits and Multilateral 12 Special Contributor Wondwosen Asnake Environmental Agreements Youth Editor Karen Eng Guest Editor Daniela Jaramillo Troya Nairobi Coordinator Naomi Poulton Green jobs, green options 14 Head, UNEP’s Children and Youth Unit Theodore Oben Enjoying the BYEE buzz 16 Circulation Manager Mohamed Atani Sharing inspiration 17 Design Edward Cooper, Ecuador Production Banson Young leaders 18 Cover photo Phade71/Flickr Youth contributors Andrew Bartolo (Malta); Alina Start with yourself 20 Bezhenar (Russia); María del Refugio Boa Alvarado (Mexico); Mariana Carnasciali (Brazil); Ella Cunnison Seven steps into the future 22 (UK); Sebastien Duyck (France); Elham Fadaly (Egypt); Aghnia Fasza (Indonesia); Mary Jade P. Gabanes Beyond the art of the probable 24 (Philippines); Shakeem Goddard (St Lucia); Christopher Grant (St Vincent & Grenadines); Anisa Haernissa (Indonesia); Hu Ching (Singapore); M. Ihsan Kaadan (Syria); Alex Lenferna (South Africa); Cassandra Lin Keep up with TUNZA on your mobile (USA); Dalia Fernanda Márquez Añez (Venezuela); Michael Muli (Kenya); Andrea Nava (Guatemala); Shruti http://tunza.mobi Neelakantan (India); Arleo Neldo (Indonesia); Maryam Nisywa (Indonesia); Stephen Njoroge (Kenya); Kevin or on Facebook Ochieng (Kenya); José Humberto Páez Fernández (Costa Rica); Gracia Paramitha (Indonesia); María Reyes www.facebook.com/TUNZAmagazine (Ecuador); Sarah Ervinda Rudianto (Indonesia); Neima’t Allah Shawki (Sudan); Rishabh Singh (India); Pritish Taval (India); Ben Vanpeperstraete (Belgium); Victoria Wee (Canada); Daniel Zardo (Brazil). Other contributors Karen Armstrong; Jane Bowbrick; Yu-Rin Chung (Bayer); Severn Cullis-Suzuki; Michael Dorsey; Ginnie Guillén; James Hung; Yolanda Kakabadse; Brice Lalonde; Frank Rothbarth (Bayer); Achim Steiner (UNEP); Zonibel Woods; Rosey Simonds and David Woollcombe (Peace Child International). UNEP and Bayer, the German- Painting Competition on the Printed in Malta based multinational involved in Environment, the UNEP Tunza The contents of this magazine do not necessarily refl ect the views health care, crop protection International Youth and Children’s or policies of UNEP or the editors, nor are they an offi cial record. and high-tech materials, are Conferences, youth environmental The designations employed and the presentation do not imply the working together to strengthen networks in Africa, Asia Pacifi c, expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNEP concern- ing the legal status of any country, territory or city or its authority, or young people’s environmental Europe, Latin America and the concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. awareness and engage children Caribbean, North America and West and youth in environmental issues Asia, the Bayer Young Environmental worldwide. Envoy Program and a photo UNEP promotes competition, ‘Ecology in Focus’, in environmentally sound practices A partnership agreement, originally Eastern Europe. globally and in its own activities. This signed in 2004 and renewed in 2007 magazine is printed on 100% chlorine-free and 2010, runs through 2013. It lays The long-standing partnership paper from sustainably managed forests, using down the basis for UNEP and Bayer to between UNEP and Bayer has become vegetable-based inks and other eco-friendly implement the projects under the a public-private partnership that practices. Our distribution policy aims partnership. These include: TUNZA to reduce UNEP’s carbon footprint. serves as a model for both Magazine, the International Children’s organizations. 2 TUNZA Vol 9 No 3 Tunza_9.3_Engv4.indd 2 23/11/2011 18:37 uring the UNEP Tunza Children and Youth Conference 2011, participants worked on forging Da strong, concrete global youth statement to be taken to world leaders at Rio+20. In the weeks leading up to the conference, a youth steering committee of Tunza Youth Advisory Council members and leaders of youth organizations around the world gathered ideas and statements to create a draft of the Bandung Declaration. Over three days participants read, discussed and amended the draft, and at the closing plenary, the delegates put the fi nishing touches to the declaration. Here are a few of the highlights. The BANDUNG DECLARATION We … are united in calling upon world leaders to move to a sustainable development pathway that safeguards the Earth and its people for our generation and generations to come. Rio+20 … marks a generation since the 1992 Earth Summit – the fi rst effective global recognition of the environmental, social and economic costs of unrestrained development. Our governments … promised to reduce poverty, stem environmental degradation and enhance equity. Businesses and multi-national corporations have pledged to respect the environment, green their production and compensate We call upon business leaders to collectively commit to: for their pollution. Yet, our planet’s future – our future – is • implementing effective corporate social and environmental in peril. We cannot wait another generation, until a Rio+40, responsibility through a new economic model that ensures before we act. sustainable resource use; • [being] accountable for the sustainability of their supply We pledge the following commitments to make the Rio+20 chain and production patterns; Earth Summit a milestone for change: • [increasing] investment in environmentally benefi cial scien- • lobby our governments to make the Rio+20 Earth Summit tifi c research and development … a top priority; • adopt more sustainable lifestyles and educate our local We need to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the communities, including indigenous communities, sharing established international institutions and assess new knowledge at the same level. institutional structures that guide us toward a sustainable green and fair economy. We believe such structures should: We urge the Rio+20 Earth Summit to agree that all green • focus on implementing existing international agreements economies should: and plans of action; • protect and value natural resources and ecosystems, • hold governments, corporations and civil society organ- on which all life depends, and recognize the traditional izations accountable to their promises and obligations on knowledge and practices of indigenous peoples and local sustainable development; communities; • further the implementation of the precautionary principle • invest in education and social entrepreneurship which and demand reparations of damages, such as applied to engenders sustainable development values; new technologies and practices; and • engage citizens to protect the environment in their everyday lives… We believe that good governance at the country, state, province and city levels should: We call upon world leaders to come to Rio to collectively • meaningfully engage all stakeholders in the decision-making reinvest political will in: process, considering the views and opinions of minorities, • developing national green economy transition plans and the underprivileged, illiterate, and the unemployed; agendas for action; • protect and defend the rights of young and future • responsibly phasing out subsidies that are harmful to the generations. environment; • incorporating environmental and social considerations in economic policy formation and adopt alternative measures To read the full text: http://www.tunza2011.org/index.php/ of development to gross domestic product … agenda/bandung-declaration The road to Rio+20 3 Tunza_9.3_Engv4.indd 3 23/11/2011 18:31 New beginnings at Rio+20 UNEP’s Executive Director Achim Steiner, who spent many of his formative years in Brazil, talks about the issues that the world community will confront in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012. s the world prepares for surviving on less than $1.25 per Rio+20 – 20 years after person per day. And since the Athe 1992 Earth Summit fi nancial crisis, more young people, set the stage for contemporary particularly in Latin America and the sustainable development – youth Caribbean, have only been able to unemployment has emerged as a fi nd work in the informal sector, the central preoccupation. ‘black economy’. Globally, young people make up The UN’s 1986 Declaration on IISD a quarter of the workforce but the Right to Development says 40 per cent of the unemployed. that everyone should have UNEP’s report, Towards a Green In many countries of North ‘equality of opportunity … in Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Africa and the Middle East, youth their access to basic resources, Development and Poverty Eradi- unemployment hovers around 23- education, health services, food, cation, suggests that 2 per cent 29 per cent or more, the reality of housing, employment and the of global GDP invested in 10 key which played a part in the ‘Arab fair distribution of income’.