Understanding the Rio+20 Conference Building a fair green economy and democratic governance of the planet in a framework of sustainable development 20-22 june 2012 1 This analysis report was written by: Miriam CANGUSSU TOMAZ GARCIA Emeline DIAZ Vaia TUUHIA Geneviève VERBRUGGE Pierre RADANNE Dossiers et Débats pour le Développement Durable. (4D – 150-154, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin – 75001 Paris – www.association4d.org) With the financial support of: It was funded by the Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, The Agence Française de Développement, the Fond Français pour l’Environnement Mondial and the Agence de l’Environnement de la Maitrise de l’Energie. This report is also published in English. It is available on the following sites: www.iepf.org and www.association4d.org. 2 WHY WRITE AN ANALYSIS REPORT? In the course of the months spent preparing for the Rio Conference, a worrying fact came to light: there is a terrible gap between the importance of what is at stake, the aggravation of all sorts of crises and the lack of clarity in visions for the future, the weakness of political proposals and especially the inability of countries to adopt converging positions. This is all expressed in texts that are difficult to understand, that fail to explain the stakes or evaluate the efforts of the last twenty years, or to highlight the possible progress that needs to be made. It is impossible to meet the world’s expectations without respecting the fundamental loyalty that underpins transparency. This realisation motivated the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie in partnership with the association 4D (Dossiers et Débats pour le Développment Durable) to write an analysis for the Summit, based on the following objectives to: • Help everyone to understand the true stakes of the negotiation by doing away with any jargon. • Describe the state of play of the points of the negotiation that constitute the basis for moving forward. • Report on obstacles and identify progress and potential areas of convergence that point towards a successful future for all peoples and that is coherent with achieving global balance. • Transcribe the points that could be used in a potential agreement, as well as the ideas for a future mandate. This is all the more necessary as the media find it difficult to access all the elements required for a full understanding of the subject, and rarely have enough time and space to take its full complexity into account. Given the difficulty and the highly scientific nature of the contents of most environmental issues linked to social and economic questions, we consider it essential to outline and re- contextualise the issues at stake in this analysis report. It is all the more useful to do this, as the 2012 Conference is part of a cycle of Earth Summits that are held every ten years. This analysis report aims to provide a tool for international negotiators, media, and more broadly speaking, all economic actors, professions, private and public sectors, to enable them to follow the ins and outs of these complex negotiations that cover vast stakes (development, equity, climate, biodiversity, desertification, economy, finance, governance…). This analysis report also aims to provide an update in accessible language on the technical sticking points of the negotiations and especially on the political stakes as well as impacts on society. This requires training if the negotiations are to take the high road and include maximum participation. It is all the more necessary as the organisation of this conference poses a problem in terms of limitation of numbers of participants, imposed by the host country. This Memoradum is aimed at everyone who will not be able to take part in the Rio Conference but who would like to understand the facts at the outset and be able to better follow the progress from afar and subsequently transpose things into their practice and commitments. In order to do this, and to remain as neutral and as complete as possible, as well as presenting all the issues at stake in this process, this document will be widely communicated and submitted for modification and contributions to various actors (NGOs, politicians, scientists, country negotiators…) The opinions expressed in this analysis report are the author’s alone, and do not represent any official position of any Member States of the French-speaking community. 3 Dedication to Ms Gro Harlem Brundtland, We wish you to be fully aware, Madam, that the pale sun of Norway has lighted up our lives, with your report ‘Our Common Future’, written in 1987. You probably do not know us; but those writing to you a part of the world as a whole. We shall live out our lives on this planet. We shall do everything in our power to succeed in achieving sustainable development for humankind as a whole. This new Summit in Rio looks like being difficult. Yet humankind lives on hope; indifference causes humans to fade and feel worthless; violence destroys humankind: you had to confront this issue yourself last year. In this new negotiation, few commitments are being made, or funding dedicated. We therefore need to outline a roadmap that will help us to change and achieve a new development model - new civilizations – totally based on the Sustainable Development Goals, aka the Millennium Development Goals. We need to build new global governance. This will be far more difficult than in Rio in 1992 or in Kyoto; it will therefore take time. But with new communication tools, a gigantic web is being woven around the entire planet, one of actors on the move. Their initiatives, practice and cooperation will enable us to extend the work of Agenda 21s, the strategies for sustainable development in both companies and countries. The objective is to successfully set humanity on a road over the course of this century, to guarantee the future for our children and grandchildren. • The structure of this document - The first part of this analysis is devoted to considering the current state of the world that has changed a lot since the Rio Conference of 1992, and the issues currently confronting the global community (“The stakes in a changing world”). - It is followed by an evaluation of the tentative solutions proposed by previous conferences in terms of sustainable development, and an explanation of the workings of the current negotiation process (“The solutions proposed by the Summits on sustainable development”). - And finally, we shall explore the potential paths to meet the challenges (“The real solutions to meet the challenges of the future”). This includes the need to consider the ultimate objective of these negotiations: to build a new development model that satisfies everyone. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. The issues at stake in a world of change ............................................................................ 9 1. The legacy of the 20th century ........................................................................................ 9 1.1. The three forms of globalisation ............................................................................. 10 1.2. The impacts of globalisation ................................................................................... 11 1.3. Stakes of the 21st century ...................................................................................... 13 2. Challenges of the 21st century ....................................................................................... 15 3. The founding principles of the 21st century .................................................................. 17 3.1. The responsibility .................................................................................................... 17 3.2. Solidarity ................................................................................................................. 18 3.3. The Commons or declaring the universal interest of Humankind ....................... 19 3.4. Sustainability: optimising resources, sobriety and respect for the limits of the planet and ecosystems ....................................................................................................... 21 3.5. Equity and Social justice ........................................................................................ 22 II. Tentative responses by the Earth Summit on sustainable development ....................... 25 1. The history of the concept of Sustainable Development .............................................. 25 1.1. The integration of economic and social issues: a difficult question ...................... 25 1.2. The appearance of the environmental question .................................................... 26 1.3. The ambiguity caused by presenting sustainable development through the three pillars 27 2. The Summits on Environment and Sustainable Development ................................... 27 2.1. The emergence of strong principles and genuine awareness ............................... 30 2.2. Challenges to the implementation of decisions and commitments made by Summits ............................................................................................................................. 35 3. The Millennium Development Goals ............................................................................. 42 4. The weak implementation of the progress made in Johannesburg ............................. 44 4.1. The key commitments, objectives and time-lines of the Johannesburg action plan. .................................................................................................................................