It’s Our Leaders That Are Behind

The final draft of the Rio+20 outcomes have now been finalised and awaits approval from world leaders.

The draft is unsurprisingly weak on commitments and vague on timelines and definitions. It has received widespread criticism from both civil society and the private sector, and was described by WWF Director General Jim Leape as “a colossal failure of leadership and vision from diplomats.”

Once again, like in 1992 at the first Earth Summit and Johannesburg a decade later, we find ourselves on the brink of failure in environmental negotiations.

As a result many have tried to look for a positive in all this whilst bracing for the imminent disaster.

The most common way of doing this is by giving up on Rio+20 and environmental multilateralism, arguing instead for a focus on partnerships.

It’s a view that was last week advocated by prominent economist Jeffrey Sachs; echoed by the private sector, such as Caio Koch-Weser, vice-chairman of Deutsche Bank; infiltrated the opinion pieces of The Guardian and The New York Times; and was even adopted by the EU negotiators in light of the draft text being completed.

“We managed to get the green economy on the agenda, and so I think we have a strong foundation for this vision that can drive civil society and the private sector to work in the same direction,” Danish Environmental Minister and representative for the EU, Ida Auken, was reported by the BBC as saying.

What this discourse represents is a resignation at international environmental politics; instead advocating the seemingly simple solution of getting us to do their work.

Unfortunately this is not new. In 2002 the Johannesburg Earth Summit introduced flexible bilateral private-public partnerships, which it was argued, would stimulate new actors and funding rather than relying on top-down, regulatory, state driven models. This method was later reinforced at the Copenhagen climate change negotiations in 2009, as the private sector was left to pick up the pieces following the collapse in international political will. Pledges by the private sector were made, and organisations focussed on business solutions to the climate crisis emerged from the ashes, such as Richard Branson’s ‘Carbon War Room’. The new global paradigm is that leaders will do absolutely nothing other than non-committal symbolic acts highlighting the problems, expecting others to have some degree of courage in tackling the crisis. 

But it is not working anymore. UNEP executive director Achim Steiner has warned that pollution is killing millions of people a year, climate change is accelerating, and soil and ocean degradation is worsening. “If current trends continue … then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation.”

Since 1992 the world has continued warming with a 40 per cent increase in carbon emissions influencing a 0.4˚C increase in global temperatures. Biodiversity in the tropics has fallen by 30 per cent  and 300 million hectares of forest cover has been destroyed – roughly the equivalent size of Argentina. Fifty-two species a year become endangered as ecosystem decline continues unabated and only 1.4 per cent of the world’s oceans are protected, leaving the rest vulnerable to exploitation and pollution. Meanwhile the number of people living in urban slums has increased to 827 million. Worst of all, 1.3 billion people are still living in extreme poverty.

There is only so much individuals and companies can do to achieve sustainable development. The rest requires governments and international cooperation.

One issue up for debate at Rio+20 is fossil fuel subsidies, which are currently twelve times larger than those for renewable energy. It is no surprise then that eighty per cent of the world’s energy needs are still met through dirty forms of fossil fuels. Only governments can end these subsidies, and global cooperation is needed when few are likely to go at it alone.

The UN has touted a long list of voluntary commitments made by the private sector, UN agencies and nations at Rio+20. But these non-binding committments are not new.  At least 391 of the 450 commitments listed on the Rio+20 website are from initiatives predating the current summit.

The current face-saving proposals pushing for individual, community and corporate action can no longer work. This is letting our leaders off the hook. It will have disturbing consequences for everyone. If it means negotiators must stay awake late into the night every night in order to achieve incremental changes, as was the case in Durban last December when deciding the future of a climate change agreement, so be it. Governments must be pushed to achieve the big changes required to respond to the crisis.

Yes, we as individuals and corporations have a role to play. It is essential if long term change is ever going to be achieved. After all, the root cause of these problems is our patterns of consumption and production.

But leading from below has been happening for too long, we now need leadership from above. The main game must remain a globally coherent solution to a global problem.

Rio+20 may be our last chance to hold our leaders to account. Rio+40 will be too late.

By Tim Hall, photo by Sam Bowstead.