With Rio plus 20

Do we have a plan, do we understand? The relationship between ideas, knowledge and action is a complex one

First a quote from the UN “In Larger Freedom”  “We fundamentally depend on natural systems and resources for our existence and development. Our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated. (§57”)

Then a quote from a great African  “Good governance at the local, national and international levels is perhaps the single most important factor in promoting development and advancing the cause of peace”, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN

We are discussing nothing new -

Nothing new  Rachel Carson said it in 1960  Barry Commoner said it in 1970  UNEP, Stockholm, said it in 1972  UNCED, Agenda 21, Rio, said it in 1992  The UN millennium ecosystems report said it in 2000  WSSD, Johannesburg, said it in 2002

Our time is now  What is different now, is that we have a global audience willing to listen to environmental issues

DECISIONS are MADE

What is missing in decisions?  We have facts and we need action!  We have the resources and money  We are willing to act; but what is it we are willing to do?  And what are the consequences of our actions?

This has been missing….  It is a question of political will, and doing the right thing for all people.

 And the choices we are about to make, may take us forward in a right or wrong direction.

And what is our attitude and approach? Are we  Solution oriented?  Well-fare oriented?  Altruistic and sharing?  Optimistic?

The UN decided that  On 24th December 2009 the UN General Assembly adopted a Resolution (A/RES/64/236) agreeing to hold the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in also referred to as 'Rio+20' or 'Rio 20'.A/RES/64/236

THE THEMES now and in Rio -

The UN Conference on Sustainable Development (2012)  Has two foci and  Three objectives

The three objectives are 1. secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, 2. assessing the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major SD

3 - addressing new and emerging challenges;

The focus of the Conference, 2012 will include  a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication;  the institutional framework for sustainable development;

And for the record  The major groups and civil society have been given a role in the process by being referred to in 8 of the 29 paragraphs of the GA resolution calling for the UN CSD in Rio in 2012  At all levels of the process, nationally regionally and globally including at the conference

The 9 major groups are  Women  Children and youth  Indigenous Peoples  Farmers  NGOs, non governmental organisations  Trade unions  Local authorities  Science and technology  Business and industry

Now what?

What about the UN?  What has the UN done for us, and how does the work it is carrying out relate to what we are doing?

Does the UN offer us  An obvious connection?  A necessary connection?  A useful connection?

How do we understand the UN?

Tasks of the UN - a major function  One of the major functions of the UN is global standard setting and developing norms, rules, procedures and conventions that govern the global community

Tasks of the UN – a major dilemma  One of the major dilemmas of the UN is the obvious need to implement the standards and to create the political will globally to support and abide by these standards

Understanding the UN  However, the impression is often that the ‘market’ considers UN agreements as obstacles, tools that hinder the free will and spirit of creative market forces.

Understanding the UN  Yet most people outside the market, consider these treaties as tools that help protect and safeguard something that needs to be protected.

And what about sustainable development?

Sustainable development  Concepts often remain concepts in search of applications….

Does Sustainable Development have an application?  According to the UN, sustainable development rests on three pillars:  Social  Economic  Environmental

What is in the resolution about the un summit in 2012, an application for sustainability?

What is in the UN resolution?  Themes are defined, not content  The conference at the highest political level, not yet a summit, but perhaps…?  Operationalize the three elements in sustainable development, central to the UN-track

What is in the UN resolution?  Emphasise the importance of CSD( Commission on Sustainable Development)  Emphasise the importance of CSR ( Corporate Social Responsibility)  Emphasise the importance of SCP( Sustainable Consumption and Production)

What is in the UN resolution?  That civil society, the Major Groups shall participate in all meetings and at all levels of the preparatory process including the conference itself, and at all geographical levels, nationally, regionally and globally

Any visible problems?  Process lacks dynamics  Developed countries using brakes instead of accelerators and are not prioritising sustainable development  Developed countries upgrading other processes, than the UN, (Davos, G-8 etc)

Any visible problems?  The process working in the shadow of a number of UN fiasco conferences and processes  The process seem to lack visions of how the world might look like in a sustainable way in 2030

Process challenges  Few countries have developed basic positions, EU only this summer  Compared to Rio in 1992, there is little time for the preparatory work  Unclear roles between various units of the UN,  Lack of resources from donors and from financial institutions

What’s missing in the resolution?  There is no definition of or direction for the discussion concerning the Green Economy concept  Does not indicate in any way how to strengthen the institutional architecture

What’s missing in the resolution?  Does not deal with or reflect the changing political realities in the world today  Does not deal with UNEP at all

What’s positively new?  G-77 is to a large extent driving the process  Civil society/ major groups have been given an active role

What’s positively new?  The US has a government from the Democratic party  The themes are looking for content, and proposals are actively sought and are positively welcome

Do we really understand our world today?

 Has anything really happened over the last 20 to 30 years?

How do we understand our world?  Our world is changing, from a bi- polar world in the 1970s to a multi- polar world today, from a North South divide to where many nations from earlier developing regions are active  and what will the world in 2030 look like?

Population perspectives  1970 – population increase, 2.3 %/ annum  2010 –population increase 1.1% annum

 Fertility rates are falling everywhere

 1970: estimates at stabilising level, end of 21 st century at 20 billion  2010: estimates at stabilising level, end of 21 st century at >9 billion

Food availability and people ( )  Total food production:  million metric tonnes -  8,6 billion metric tonnes of food  Global population (ca) million individuals – or  6,7 billion people on earth

 Food per capita/annum: kilo  Food per cap/day: 3.5 kilo

Food availability  At 10 billion people at the end of the century (estimated stability), and at no increase in food production:  816 kilo food per year and person

...or 2,5 kilo of food per person and day or grams per meal per person.

How do we understand our world?  Are the developing nations the same today as they were in the 1970s?  Political blocks are changing, old ones are fragmenting

How do we understand our world?  Is the UN is given less priority?  Is Davos is more important than Geneva, New York and Nairobi  Is the financial crisis used as an excuse for not giving priority to sustainable development

Double talk among nations  The same governments criticising the UN, undermines it by withdrawing or reducing their support, politically and economically  Not so when the bank crisis emerged

A changed world  The bi-polar (North South) world is on the wane, and a multi-polar world has emerged: north is no longer dominating the global scene and several former developing countries are global players. The classic period of aid is coming to an end.

 Still, large inequalities remain, poverty is a dominating feature in many countries and has become global, large segments of population are marginalised; environmental issues have become problematic and environmental stability is threatened in many places often aggravating poverty.

Are we outdated?  Is our understanding of the world today, its problems and solutions in reality based on how we saw the world as it was back in the 1970s and we thought all what we did then, actually worked? Are we still using the same mechanisms?

The themes of the resolution

 The borders within which any economy must exist and function are defined

The Rio decisions  Can reform the world and how we think  Reform means strengthen, not reduce

UNEP identifies a world in need of restoration  Biodiversity is the basis of ecosystem health and of the provision of ecosystem services  Restoring a damaged ecosystem is a difficult and complex task, and one about which we still have much to learn

Boundaries for the economy  Efforts to designate ‘planetary boundaries’, which are intended to define a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity with respect to Earth systems, have begun.

The nine planetary boundaries  climate change rate (passed)  biodiversity loss (terrestrial and marine) (passed)  interference with the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles (passed)  stratospheric ozone depletion

The nine planetary boundaries  ocean acidification  global freshwater use  change in land use  chemical pollution  atmospheric aerosol loading

Green Economy- four ways?  Reduce, reuse and recycle, including making all production green, may be the panacea – a market liberalistic view. Worst case: green-washing and greening greed  De-growth or a critical approach to the system of economy, based on what is know as strong sustainability

Green Economy- four ways?  Distributive growth, tries to look at SCP in a ’frugal’ way  Global transition – incremental change with strengthening key institutions

Green economy If we do not think differently this time, we would just be greening the greed.

Green economy challenges  The Earth Integrity Principle  The Planetary Boundaries Principle  The Dignity Principle  The Justice Principle  The Precautionary Principle  The Resilience Principle  The Governance Principle  The Beyond-GDP Principle

Institutional sustainable development governance

GOVERNANCE BEYOND GOVERNMENT  Governance is overwhelmingly associated with the work of governments. Yet during the last two decades, the governmental mode of governance has been complimented by modes of governance in which non-governmental organizations and the private sector are key partners.

GOVERNANCE BEYOND GOVERNMENT  This trend is illustrated by the sustained growth of private sector standards such as certification, and of public- private partnerships, at the local to the global level.

Governance  The term governance refers to the process or method by which society is governed, or the ‘condition of ordered rule’.

Good governance at a minimum  Participation  Accountability  Transparency  Implementation

Institutional architecture  Need to further develop and strengthen functions and systems within the UN and at national level on sustainable development

 Make sure that environmental issues are handled by knowledgeable elements of the UN, and allow the environmental institutions a stronger political authority, decision power over financial institutions, power of implementation etc.

The themes of the resolution

Identify and deal with emerging issues  Food security  Climate security  Energy security  Water security  Ecosystems security  Other issues  Design and develop a system which can handle emerging issues and which can actually strengthen the merging issues

And what about security?  ‘Moreover, what we may be witnessing, as security increasingly dominates the agenda, is the end of politics as a forum for open debate, which is the crucible in which democracy flourishes.” Professor Frederick Powell of the Irish University in Cork, Ireland

Identify and deal with emerging issues  Proposal to develop a basis for three new frameworks conventions at Rio plus Principle 10 and access to information, participation and justice;

Identify and deal with emerging issues 2 - Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, based on the ISO outcome (Consumer International?) 3 - Develop the precautionary principle to a framework convention to include issues on emerging technologies, bio- engineering and nano-technology

Renewed political commitment  Develop a new and visionary document on how the world should look like in 2030 complete with concepts visions, values, all elements that should be brought into the expressed political commitments for sustainable development

And finally

We are in a quandary:  We need quick actions but will see no quick results.  We need quick capital and massive finance to pay for these actions, with no promise of quick and massive returns.  We need simple understanding to complex problems.

 We need commitments to last for 30 years and more, but our fear and impatience, do not speak of maintaining a high level of commitments for as long as it takes.

Decisions may go wrong, we need informed people  To make the right choices, and have these choices supported by people, and have the choices improve the lives of everybody, we need to base our choices on a number of well established values that are intrinsically found in democracy.

Democratic values  Among these values are two pillars:  one is about the individual person being able to make an informed choice.  The other is that the individual person will be able to understand the consequences of the informed choice.

How to make complex choices?  In a small society  In a big, complex society  In a technological society  In a complex and technologically based and technologically oriented society  In a global society  In a fast moving society?

Choices made in a complex and interdependent society: Are they so difficult to understand that we will inevitably come to rely on:  elites?  experts?  control systems?  In short will we be subject to a dictatorship of circumstances?

Our opportunities, unused  The intergovernmental system in general and the UN in particular offer unprecedented opportunities for people to participate actively in these processes and influence their own fate at home.

Road-map to Rio  And from now until first of November, input to the negotiating document from civil society  Has to be relevant to the agenda points  Can be developed nationally and globally

A philosopher....  The great enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant gave us all almost 250 years ago gave all a clarion call to follow:

“Sapere aude – Have courage to use your own understanding”

Shakespeare simply said Action is eloquence

A word from a confused optimist, who said  …I love humanity, it’s people I cannot stand

…and we will simply say  Yes, we can, too.. build a better century than the one we just left behind

… and finally  Thank you for your attention  Jan-Gustav Strandenaes  