Give me a triple expresso in Rio

I've spent the last week in New York, mainly to attend what is called in UN jargon "informal informals", a process to facilitate the negotiation by Member States of  "The Future we Want", the outcome document of the Rio+20 conference scheduled to take place June 20-22, 2012 for the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit to (according to the UN General Assembly)"secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and the remaining gaps in implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development, and address new and emerging issues."

As an adviser to several organizations, I've been attending the preparatory meetings for Rio+20 pretty much since the process began over a year ago. And one concern I have is that -- although there are environmental and development NGOs that are doing good work in their respective fields -- I don't yet see them with one narrative or track that the majority of them can run with together, both at the international and national level. As a result, instead of receiving one or several clear key messages from civil society, with some exceptions what governments are getting essentially sounds like a background noise to which it's hard to listen.

I'm sure though that there are ways to create synergies so that large segments of the NGO community -- environmental, development and other advocacy NGOs -- work together while preserving and reinforcing their respective agendas and identities. I was involved for example during the last Earth Summit ten years ago in Johannesburg with such an initiative which we'd called at the time ECO-Equity coalition. Because  we focussed together on a small set of key issues, the NGOs in that coalition could be heard in and outside the meeting rooms. Despite their differences, NGOs working on climate change are also good at working together, for example via the Climate Action Network (CAN) and the Global Campaign for Climate Action (Tctcktck).

I've been wondering last week in New York what could be a good way forward this time, and one thought is that maybe time is ripe is to concentrate efforts on the elimination of environmentally harmful subsidies. Of course this is not a new idea per se; many intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations have been working on this issue for many years and governments have made numerous pledges already. But there are reasons to believe that the time is now, because now everyone has public deficits in their heads, and what's good about addressing environmentally harmful subsidies is that it doesn't require additional resources; quite the opposite, it would free considerable resources which could be reallocated. Since the Rio+20 process started everyone has been wondering (more or less loudly) how to mobilize world leaders and the general public for a new Earth summit when they're all traumatized by the worldwide financial turmoil. Well, the elimination of harmful subsidies as the key ask may be the answer, or a big part of it.

The UN's idea with Rio+20 is to kick start in Rio initiatives to boost "the green economy", but it's not going to work if governments continue to fuel "the grey economy" with billions of dollars in support of environmentally damaging and destructive activities. For example, according the OECD's International Energy Agency (EIA), in 2010 governments' subsidies to fossil fuel consumption amounted to 409 Billion US Dollars. Subsidies in the fisheries sector continue to enhance fleets over-capacity and cause overfishing worldwide, etc. Governments recognize the problem; it's been addressed for years in UN fora, the World Trade Organization,  the G20, the European Union, etc. but business as usual dominates. Put bluntly, it's time for governments to put their money where their mouth is.

For example, the UN Secretary-General is issuing this week the final report of the High Level Panel on Global Sustainability formed a year and a half ago; the role of subsidies is highlighted in the report but, as the Secretary of the Panel Janosz Pastor said at a briefing last week in New York, the panel members were unable to reach consensus to recommend the elimination of  environmentally damaging subsidies in the fisheries and agriculture sectors; for the fossil fuel sector they're recommending a phase out only of "inefficient" subsidies, leaving it to governments to determine which ones are deemed inefficient. If a 20-member panel can't agree, what hope is there that the 193 UN member States can ever agree if civil society doesn't prioritize? Under the aegis of the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI), several organizations are calling on Rio+20 to pledge to phase out fossil fuel subsidies; maybe this is something to build from and expand.

The "zero draft" outcome document currently under negotiation for Rio contains two place-holders addressing the issue. Paragraph 42 (c) would commit governments "to gradually eliminate subsidies that have considerable negative effects on the environment and are incompatible with sustainable development, complemented with measures to protect poor and vulnerable groups". And if Paragraph 126 remains, governments would "support the eventual phase out of market distorting and environmentally harmful subsidies that impede the transition to sustainable development, including those on fossil fuels, agriculture and fisheries, with safeguards to protect vulnerable groups".  Note the word "eventual": even before negotiation has begun in earnest, the document is decaffeinated. Give me a triple expresso, please.

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUI) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE.

Yes we want?

The Secretariat of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) has uploaded last night the long awaited “zero draft” of the conference's outcome document. Also known as the Rio+20 conference, the UNCSD will take place in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit of 1992. The Zero Draft forms the basis for further negotiations. I'll be at what the UN jargon calls an informal informal this month, 25-27 January in New York (there will be several more before everyone meets in Rio in June). The most immediate question is whether this Zero Draft will be decaffeinated in the search for consensus (the race to the lowest common denominator) or whether on the contrary it will be spiced up.

I'm hearing some people and governments already saying that the 19-page document is "too long". I don't really think that's a problem, and to be fair the Secretariat had a tough job turning into a concise document the six thousand pages submitted on 1st November by 677governments, international organizations, regional and political groups, and NGOs. Inevitably a lot of these contributors are already getting the feeling that their issue(s) and proposals have not been given a fair hearing or have been left aside, so it's likely that at least initially the successive drafts increase in size.

More than the document itself and its size, let's look where it's leading us to. It is proposed that Rio+20 sets the stage for several new forward-looking initiatives: an international knowledge-sharing platform to facilitate countries' green economy policy design and implementation (paragraph 33); a roadmap to implement and assess progress between 2015 and 2030, with a development phase between 2012 and 2015 (paragraph 43); the reform of the CSD, the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development (paragraph 49) or if possible its transformation into a Sustainable Development Council (paragraph 49 alt.); the strengthening of UNEP, the United Nations Environment Programme (paragraph 51) or if possible its transformation into a UN specialized agency for the environment supported by stable, adequate and predictable financial contributions and operating on an equal footing with other UN specialized agencies (paragraph 51alt.); a regular UN Secretary General review of the state of the planet and the Earth's carrying capacity (paragraph 52); consideration of the establishment of a Obudsperson or High Commissioner for Future Generations to promote sustainable development (paragraph 57); negotiation as soon as possible of an implementing agreement under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to address the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodioversity in the high seas (paragraph 80); a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (paragraph 97); the launch by 2015 of a set of global Sustainable Development Goals built from the experience of the UN Millennium Development Goals campaign, with a mechanism for periodic review (paragraphs 105-109); and (last but perhaps not least) the development and strengthening of indicators complementing Gross Domestic Products to integrate economic, social and environmental dimensions in a balanced manner (paragraph 111). The document also identifies a set of priority thematic and cross-sectoral issues and areas including food security; water; energy; cities; green jobs; oceans and small island developing states; natural disasters; climate change; forests biodiversity, land degradation and desertification; mountains; chemicals and waste; education; and gender equality (paragraphs 63 to 104). It also tries to address some of the impacts of international trade on substainability (paragraphs 124-127), and attempts to set up an accountability framework for voluntary partnerships in order to correct one of the shortfalls from the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development ten years ago (paragraph 128). 

The document's title is "The Future we Want." At the end of the process we'll know if this is what we want (what the world needs). In four years we've moved from "yes we can" to "yes we want". But if we all want it, I'm sure we can.

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUI) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE.

Snapshot

It is too early to say whether the next UN "Earth Summit" in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro (Rio+20) will be a success. But the official Rio+20 website now offers an interesting and useful snapshot of the expectations, perspectives, hopes and proposals of large segments of the international community.

In March, 2011, the second session of the Preparatory Committee of the Rio+20 Conference decided that governments, international agencies and "majors groups" (organizations representing all walks of "civil society") would have until 1st November to send to the UN their proposals for Rio+20. These would be included in a "compilation document" to be presented mid December, to form the basis of a "zero draft" document to be discussed at an intersessional meeting mid January in New York. Based on comments received on the "zero draft", a "first draft" of the conference's outcome document will be produced, and second, a third, etc. every month until the summit proper takes place in Rio at the end of June.  (Click here to see the current schedule of meetings)

To date 642 submissions are available on the UN website: 73 from governments, 4 from political groups, 4 from regional groups, 493 from civil society organizations (including private sector organizations), and 68 from UN agencies and other intergovernmental organizations. The UN Secretariat has done a good job coping with a massive snowfall of submissions received in the days preceding the 1st of November deadline. They've included a search engine to help navigate with keywords into the numerous submissions.

Before this material is trimmed by the UN negotiating process and disappears from the website, it might be a good idea to save on a hard disk this wish list of the international community. For the record.

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUÍ) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE.

McFish

I've just read on the BBC website that McDonald's restaurants have announced that they will be "serving" MSC-certified fish in Europe.

This reminds me of a dinner I was at in Geneva about 12 years ago, organized by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Fish was the main dish on the menu, and, sitted on my left a Vice-President of McDonald's asked me "How is this fish called? It's very tasty."  Half-jokingly only, I responded: "I won't tell you, because otherwise there won't be any left within a few months!" 

The man did not seem to catch what I was telling him. Perhaps he would now, a decade later. I'm curious to  see what this partnership between the MSC and McDonald's will mean to the future of both the MSC and McDonald's. And to the future of fish.

Golden rule for a planet

Today is Earth Overshoot Day according to calculations by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) and the Global Footprint Network (GFN). This means that in the first nine months of this year Humanity has surpassed its natural budget for the year (well, those who like me, and probably you also have access to abundance) . From today and for the rest of the year we will now operate in overdraft, borrowing (stealing) resources from the future.

I can't help wondering what future generations will think of us when they hear of the sharp contrast between the lightness with which we spend our (their) natural capital and destroy our (their) natural assets, and the frenzy with which neo-liberal economists are aggressively campaigning to restrict the expenditures of public administrations to the level of their incomes. Neo-liberal economists call this the Golden Rule and say it's their recipe to save financial markets and services. But shouldn't we develop instead a different kind of  Golden Rule, to save the natural wealth, preserving the services of nature, ecosystems, biodiversity and clean air and water?

A few months ago, in his blog Richard Black of the BBC wondered if anyone had "a big idea" to make the upcoming Rio+20 Conference in June, 2012 a success. And now I hear many people say that with the current financial uncertainties, political leaders have no apetite for another environmental summit. Well, I don't know if it's "a big idea", but -- if the word deficit is the only thing that wakes up political leaders and the markets -- why don't we start designing a Golden Rule to prevent us from being in deficit with nature for a change? And call for its establishment in Rio.

This blogpiece is also available in español, HERE (AQUI) on the website of the Spanish news agency EFE.

Dignity

I took this photo this evening at Madrid's Puerta del Sol, the epicenter in the last two months of the youth revolt against a political class that has lost values and is largely corrupt in a variety of ways.

Like any youth mass movement, this one has its own challenges to face. But there is little doubt already that it will be the hallmark of a generation. Here in Spain, and maybe elsewhere too.

The odds that I ever have another daughter again are very slim to say the least. But if I ever had one I'm thinking that I could call her Dignidad.  Not Esperanza. [Spanish readers will know why]

Tokyo Ginza's most cherished treasure

My immersion in the world of Japan's honeybee colonies and the challenges of their conservation ended yesterday with a visit to a honeybees farm located on top of a building in Ginza, Tokyo's equivalent of New York's Fifth Avenue.

Ginpachi, the Ginza Honey Bee Initiative on the  terrace of a fourteenth floor building on Ginza Chuo-ku is ran by an NGO that seeks to educate people to the importance of protecting bees. The Ginza district  is famous worldwide for hosting Tokyo's highest concentration of wealth and luxury items, with international fashion and design retail shops, fancy restaurants and expensive department stores everywhere. The natural wealth cherished by the beekeepers in the middle of so much artificial wealth is a striking and inspiring contrast. With nine colonies of European bees (40,000 bees per colony; European bees were introduced in Japan in the Meiji era at the end of the 19th century) and eight colonies of Japanese bees (10,000 bees per colony), Ginpachi produces per year approximately 1.7 ton of honey which is used and sold  in the pastries section of the nearby Matsuya Department Store in support of the project. Ran by fifty people, the project started in 2006 and gets visitors almost every day. The honey from Japanese bees is very tasty, but their production is 20% less than European bees'.

My main reason for coming to Japan this month was to give my two-day advocacy teach-in course to a group of Japanese farmers, beekeepers and environmentalists to help them, at their request, develop a strategic framework for their campaign against the use of neonicotinoid, the pesticide which is thought to devastate honeybee colonies. Over the years, I've given my advocacy teach-in course  in the various languages that I speak and on various continents, adapting it to the needs, objectives and focus of the very diverse organizations who've contracted me for it. But -- although I've travelled frequently to Tokyo in the last few years -- adapting it to the cultural circumstances of Japan was a good challenge and I'm glad the participants' feedback was excellent.

Before I worked on this project, I was of course already aware that several issues were causing honeybee colonies collapse disorders worldwide, and that it could become a severe food security and biodiversity conservation issue worldwide, because of the important pollination function of bees in nature. During my preparations, I found out  that the statement attributed to Albert Einstein that if honeybees disappear from our planet humans will disappear four years later is a mysterious urban legend, apparently. But, still, it's a good one.