#earthsummit

[phuketislandradio]

Earth Summit 30 years have passed - Phuket FM Radio

Earth Summit 30 years have passed since the launch of the UN Climate Change Convention and Convention on Biological Diversity. #What's happened?

[thebryantcabrera]

Our #Recyclopedia team won the #EarthSummit #TechStars #hackthon ! I’m so proud to have been on a team with such passionate, welcoming, and intelligent people. We developed an app that scans images and tells you the material and whether or not it’s recyclable. Alexander Binaei and Nic Jedema handled the awe-inspiring machine learning and created their own API. Kevin Cuison and Michael Siller handled the front-end app styling and layout. I handled the app’s backend and authentication. Teniope Adewumi-Gunn & Colton Orr handled the research, business model, and presentation. Thank you Colton Orr Teniope Adewumi-Gunn Alexander Binaei Nic Jedema Michael Siller Kevin Cuison for an amazing experience! #AIForSustainability #TechStarsStartUpWeekend #TechStarsStartUpWeekend2019 #coder #softwareengineer #machinelearning @ai.la.media @techstars @startupweekend (at Soylent Innovation Lab) https://www.instagram.com/p/BwkjoVwh_Ix/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1exzhh549h6hj

[naomidevine]

Victoria, BC Youth Outline the Future They Want

21 June 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The theme of Rio+20 is The Future We Want. In the lead up to the conference organizers have been asking people around the world to contribute to the conversation on this website.

Youth have been making most of the dramatic noise at this conference, and given the weakened agreement that seems destined to be Rio+20's legacy, their participation and calls for leadership have been a welcome breath of fresh air.

The same can be said for the youth of Victoria, BC.

As I was on the road headed to Rio, the second annual Youth Climate Action Summit took place at the Off the Grid Festival in Victoria, BC.

I had the pleasure to speak at the inaugural conference the year before and this year had the opportunity to ask youth (via video) for their statements of the future they want.

Without further ado, I present to you the future that our children desire. It's damn better than what world leaders have agreed to.

YesBC Youth Climate Action Summit 2012

• We believe it is the right and responsibility of all people to be involved in the decisions affecting our coastal waters.

• We commit to a future of sustainable living through holding our leaders and ourselves accountable for our actions.

• We will inspire other youth locally and around the world by sharing our passion for our coastal ecosystem and stopping the enbridge pipeline via social networking, media, word of mouth and protesting.

• We believe that, if we want to make positive change in this world, we need to change ourselves.

• We believe that youth need to get involved with politics and put pressure on our elected leaders to give us policies that protect our future sustainability.

• We believe it is the right of all people to have secure local food and water – always!

• We commit to a future of sustainable living through making the right food choices, by buying local, by growing our own food and sharing our knowledge about food security with others.

• We will inspire other youth locally and around the world by spreading our knowledge and leading by example.

• We believe we have the right to a secure energy future and we will pressure our elected leaders to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

• We want to live in a world that views energy as a precious resource – to be conserved and used efficiently.

[naomidevine]

Three things to expect at Rio+20 (that you may not like)

20 June 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

As someone who's been to this dance before (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Nairobi, 2006), I would like to share a few things that might help you navigate the waters that surround international negotiations of this magnitude. 

There are a few things you can expect from an event like the UN Conference on Sustainable Development. They are good to know so that you can separate what's new from what's expected. Here's my list:

1. The agreement (known as 'text') will be negotiated behind closed doors.

The beginning of the conference will have many open sessions. As we get closer to the deadline (and when international pressure rises) closed sessions will appear on the agenda. This is the way it is done.

Why, you may ask? The UN runs on a consensus style of decision making, meaning everyone has to agree on text before moving forward. If you are now thinking that these meetings are global level edit by committee sessions, then you would be pretty close to the truth.

In addition, the conversations of the negotiators use a style of language known as ''diplomatic-speak." When an open negotiating session is taking place, they eyes of the world are on it (through the observers in the room) and they are speaking to representatives from governments around the world. Diplomatic language helps ensure that the negotiations move forward without offending anyone too much. As you can imagine, this leads to lengthy discussions before consensus is reached. Blocking consensus by refusing to agree to certain words, sentences, or paragraphs also occurs, and also in the most polite terms. (But that's another article).

All of this leads to time being used up and the meeting racing toward a deadline with the rest of the world awaiting an outcome. What this means is that the closed door meetings happen to avoid scrutiny and hopefully accelerate arriving at consensus to meet the deadline.

Rio+20 officially began today, but in the week leading up to it, nations were still negotiating the text to be adopted in a meeting called "Prep Comm 3". When the final day of Prep Comm 3 arrived and the negotiators had only agreed on 40% of the text, Brazil took matters into their own hands, re-wrote the entire text, presented it to the nations behind closed doors and basically said "take it or leave it." The world took it.

It will also lead to tweets like this, because few people have been to the dance before.

Look for the national leaders, who arrived today to begin the 3 days of high level talks, to change the text before this dance ends.

2. Civil society will denounce the results of the negotiations.

Check out Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo's Twitter for a consistently excellent example of this.

When the text that was agreed to at Prep Comm 3 came out, his response:

"This is Rio Minus 20 which Fails on equity, fails on ecology,Fails on economy #rio+20 #earthsummit text longest suicide note in history"

See?

They are not wrong for doing this, but it will also never be a surprise. (Civil society groups were also disappointed with the results of Rio '92 which resulted in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Rio+20 will not achieve anything this ambitious, or launch even one international treaty.)

"Civil Society" (i.e. non-governmental organizations) is the most interesting group to follow at these types of meetings because they use the most dramatic language, organize the protests that attract media attention that are then beamed into your living room or on your computer, and they leak important documents to reveal countries' real positions on key issues.

3. Someone will say that the results are an important step forward. 

This is because someone has to - the UN has spent two years negotiating what became known as the "Zero Draft" (hold your snark for a second) which was the basis for the Rio+20 agreement. Two years - and that is a relatively short time frame as far as international negotiations are concerned.

The Guardian has already found that person. It is Caroline Spelman, head negotiator of the UK delegation. Here's what she had to say:

"Whilst there is still a lot of work to do, this agreement means we have made progress towards achieving what the Rio Earth Summit set out to do – to get the world on the right path to achieve cleaner and greener growth that ends the damage we have done to the environment and helps end poverty. The agreement on Sustainable Development Goals is a good outcome." (source)

Expect a lot of this type of language - "While there is a lot of work to do ... progress ... on the path ... achievement ... goals."

Don't expect an agreement that will set the world to action. 

What's new?

Social media is becoming a new and important force on the stage here, and 350.org's Twitterstorm on June 18 helped bring the topic of ending fossil fuel subsidies to the forefront. Did it work? Kinda, according to Grist's Greg Hanscom.

That's just the complexity of negotiating one point. Remember that the Earth Summit is essentially aimed at tackling the green economy, and creating a better system of global governance (see the Guardian's Jonathan Watts' excellent Q+A on Rio+20)

So there you have it - regardless of the UN meeting you can expect these 3 things to happen. Hopefully it helps you push through the deluge of information coming out of the talks and form your own opinion on how best to move forward.

Regardless of how Rio+20 turns out, the challenge of achieving sustainability is a responsibility we all share - governments and citizens alike.

[greenafrica]