A Future with No Rules: Rio+20 Lacking in Governance

Negotiations at Rio+20 highlight the impasse between countries on urgent reform of sustainable development governance.

Negotiations on the final outcome of Rio+20, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, have stalled with talks being extended at 11:57pm on the “last” night of the preparatory meeting. After eight months of negotiations, only 37% of the final text had been agreed upon. In typical UN fashion, the remainder of the text remained in brackets indicating at the ambiguity still surrounding general principles, solutions for and financing of sustainable development.

One such crucial area is institutional reform. Especially given the overlapping nature of environmental issues and the inefficiency of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in playing a coordination role.

States have agreed on broad principles but cannot cooperate on concrete outcomes. Even the fastidious European Union (EU) and Australian delegate have been unable to win against the coalition of constrained developing countries and hindering countries including the US, Canada, Japan and Switzerland.

For example, many are in agreement that the Economic and Social Council is important, but disagree on how to strengthen it. The same is true with the establishing of a Sustainable Development Council where disagreements impede any clarity around its purpose and authority.

The EU has been pushing for a high-level intergovernmental body but, developing countries are not willing to move beyond a “forum” or “common space” with less authority.

Countries agree on the need for a dynamic platform for sustainable development. It’s in the details that the divergence of opinions occur.

The G77 and other developing countries are reluctant to cooperate because of the potential for Western interference and dominance on the issue of sustainable development.

Monitoring the achievement of sustainable development goals has been hotly debated. The EU sees monitoring as a means to attain results, but a Peruvian delegate perceived it instead as a “way of control of the least developed countries, by the rich countries, who did not respect their sustainable development commitments since the last summit in Rio twenty years ago ”.

“There is not much hope to find a compromise on monitoring,” stated another Mexican delegate.

The G77 are also unwilling to commit to concrete action due to their limited access to resources needed in achieving sustainable development. As such, there is a need for increased financing, capacity building and technology transfer between developed and developing countries.

This profound gap almost halted negotiations and has diminished hope amongst civil society and official party delegates themselves.

One German delegate noted that “at the pace we are going there does not seem to be much pressure.”

With negotiations currently stalled, many hope that Brazil will play a leadership role, as the host country, in getting the discussion back on track before the arrival of heads of state.

By Cécile Schneider, photo by Lachie McKenzie.