Women of South Asia and the Green Economy
(The above is adapted from a speech made at the Third Annual Conference of SWAN - South Asia Women’s Network - from 2-3rdJuly 2011 in Dhaka, Bangladesh)
During the past twenty years, Sustainable Development has come to the forefront of global issues. In many ways, the challenge of convincing the different sectors and groups that sustainable development is the best potential model for prosperity has become easier. Even the business and industry sector now talks about sustainable development and it appears that sustainable development is a concept already sold. Yet, sustainability and sustainable development continue to be far away from reality.
Rio+20 Summit in 2012
Twenty years ago, in 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also called the Rio Earth Summit, created a central, global focus on sustainable development. At that time, civil society was anxious about the outcome of the conference. Many us who were there were frustrated by the lack of sensitivity displayed by the developed nations and the ignorance of the rich towards making commitment towards a better world. Twenty years later, the same United Nations Organization is convening the Rio+20 Summit, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Now civil society is not just anxious or frustrated. We are simply petrified from our fear the Conference will make a complete mockery of the concept of sustainable development. A concept that has well evolved during the past four decades and smartly designed with a plethora of global policy tools is now under the threat of being diverted towards serving and saving a fallen greed-based economic model and its champions.
Replacing the Greed Economy
The current greed-based world economic system that has kept half of the global people in poverty and created a potential climate catastrophe needs to be replaced. The alternative, then, needs to replace the flaws of the prevailing economic model; it needs to block those corporations that take away breast milk of poor mothers and feed the children infant formulas of diary; it needs to suppress those irresponsible companies who carelessly damage ecosystems through oil spills; it needs to reject those business tycoons who mindlessly construct thirty five storied homes for their extreme consumption lifestyles while millions of people in the surrounding vicinity are living in slums under trying conditions; it needs to refuse celebrating those few women who enjoy highest leadership in corporations while billions of women across the developing and developed countries suffer every day from meeting the basic needs of their families.
South Asian Women and the Economy
South Asia is a region that will be hard hit by both climate change and poverty, and women will be most affected with the success or failures of an emerging Green Economy. Women account for 70 percent of the world’s population living in poverty—even though they make up 45 percent of the world’s workforce. South Asia is home to over 40% of the world's poorest people, most of whom are women and girls.60% or more of women workers in the developing world are in informal employment outside agriculture.
Therefore, any economic alternative benefiting South Asian women should focus on the aspects such as opportunity, inclusivity, sensitivity and diversity; fair and equitable opportunities to engage in Green Economy activities of a Sustainable Economy; integrated and embedded in the system and not simply engaging; respecting the sensitivities and designing the system to include those sensitivities; flourishing in diversity and not exclusivity or monopoly.
Greening the Brown Economy?
Can the proposed Green Economy provide us that alternative? Can it replace the greed-based economic order and help us face the challenge of climate change and poverty? Some environmental and social activists and thinkers suspect that this is an attempt to “green” the brown economy; an attempt to green wash the wasteful, pollutive and exploitative economic model. A green technology-based market-monopoly is feared. In the emerging climate regulatory era, a brown economic model based on dirty technology will be redundant. Therefore, the same corporate elements would be targeting a monopoly on the green technology to dominate a green growth-based economy. The rich would continue to grow and the poor would continue to suffer in such a transfer from brown to green economy.
Green Economy or Sustainable Economy?
Defining a Green Economy is still a process in progress. The ‘UNEP Green Economy Report 2011’states; “a green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. A green economy can be thought of as one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in income and employment should be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.”
While the definition is attractive and strategically includes some key words echoed by the different interests of the world, it’s also noticeable that they continue to forge growth and efficiency as the way forward. This makes us pause and wonder: Are the same people and institutions responsible for the suffering of the world’s poor behind defining the green economy? A Green Economy should be to replace the current economic order of inequity, destruction and greed! Sustainable Economy (or a true Green Economy) should be an economic system that ensures social equity, protects the ecological balance and creates economic sufficiency. The core idea of a Green Economy should be to enforce Sustainability, specifically the wellbeing of all people and the biodiversity of Earth’s ecosystems.
Foundations of a Sustainable Economy
So, what are the foundations for a Sustainable Economy? At the centre of any emerging economic model should be the vision of an ‘equity’ based world order. Equality for all should be the aspiration, and not the luxury of the twenty percent of the world’s people who enjoy the exploitation of eighty percent of the resources.
Such a system should rejects unsustainable consumption and production habits and promotes sustainable lifestyles and livelihoods. “Efficiency” paradigms continue to justify the current consumption levels that are unsustainable and proposes “less waste” as a solution. That is no longer acceptable. We need to move from a mere “efficiency” focus to sufficiency-based sustainable development paradigms. Just because the resources are harder to acquire for those rich-country consumers, “efficiency” will not be an adequate exercise. They need to cut down on their unsustainable consumption patterns and start looking for futures based on sufficiency. Sufficiency should be noted as an approach towards self-reliance and contentment.
The growth-based economic model has long served the greedy “needs” of the rich. This growth- and greed-based economic development model should be replaced with the “sharing-caring-flourishing economic mindset”. If growth had been a viable model to eradicate poverty on Earth, poverty would have ceased to exist long ago. For example, no Indian should go hungry at any given moment as they as a nation produce a surplus of grain. Prominent ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva says, “The gain in yields of industrially produced crops is based on a theft of food from other species and the rural poor in the Third World. That is why, as more grain is produced and traded globally, more people go hungry in the Third World”. ”.
Conclusions
Our commitment in an emerging green economy should be towards creating ‘wellbeing & happiness for all’, not for a few. Capital growth without distribution will not serve humanity, face climate change and eradicate poverty, or achieve sustainable development. For this to happen, we need to cultivate mindfulness not greed. Women in South Asia in general provide the ingredients of leading such a green economy in driving sustainable development; they are sensitive towards the needs of others; they care about the wellbeing of others; they strive for peace; they are content with staying within the resources of their surroundings. The diversity, simplicity, sensitivity of South Asian women need to be integrated in an emerging green economy. Such a green economy that is inclusive of the active engagement of women of South Asia can lead us towards sustainable development.
(Uchita de Zoysa is Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development and Convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM. Contact: [email protected])
During the past twenty years, Sustainable Development has come to the forefront of global issues. In many ways, the challenge of convincing the different sectors and groups that sustainable development is the best potential model for prosperity has become easier. Even the business and industry sector now talks about sustainable development and it appears that sustainable development is a concept already sold. Yet, sustainability and sustainable development continue to be far away from reality.
Rio+20 Summit in 2012
Twenty years ago, in 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also called the Rio Earth Summit, created a central, global focus on sustainable development. At that time, civil society was anxious about the outcome of the conference. Many us who were there were frustrated by the lack of sensitivity displayed by the developed nations and the ignorance of the rich towards making commitment towards a better world. Twenty years later, the same United Nations Organization is convening the Rio+20 Summit, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. Now civil society is not just anxious or frustrated. We are simply petrified from our fear the Conference will make a complete mockery of the concept of sustainable development. A concept that has well evolved during the past four decades and smartly designed with a plethora of global policy tools is now under the threat of being diverted towards serving and saving a fallen greed-based economic model and its champions.
Replacing the Greed Economy
The current greed-based world economic system that has kept half of the global people in poverty and created a potential climate catastrophe needs to be replaced. The alternative, then, needs to replace the flaws of the prevailing economic model; it needs to block those corporations that take away breast milk of poor mothers and feed the children infant formulas of diary; it needs to suppress those irresponsible companies who carelessly damage ecosystems through oil spills; it needs to reject those business tycoons who mindlessly construct thirty five storied homes for their extreme consumption lifestyles while millions of people in the surrounding vicinity are living in slums under trying conditions; it needs to refuse celebrating those few women who enjoy highest leadership in corporations while billions of women across the developing and developed countries suffer every day from meeting the basic needs of their families.
South Asian Women and the Economy
South Asia is a region that will be hard hit by both climate change and poverty, and women will be most affected with the success or failures of an emerging Green Economy. Women account for 70 percent of the world’s population living in poverty—even though they make up 45 percent of the world’s workforce. South Asia is home to over 40% of the world's poorest people, most of whom are women and girls.60% or more of women workers in the developing world are in informal employment outside agriculture.
Therefore, any economic alternative benefiting South Asian women should focus on the aspects such as opportunity, inclusivity, sensitivity and diversity; fair and equitable opportunities to engage in Green Economy activities of a Sustainable Economy; integrated and embedded in the system and not simply engaging; respecting the sensitivities and designing the system to include those sensitivities; flourishing in diversity and not exclusivity or monopoly.
Greening the Brown Economy?
Can the proposed Green Economy provide us that alternative? Can it replace the greed-based economic order and help us face the challenge of climate change and poverty? Some environmental and social activists and thinkers suspect that this is an attempt to “green” the brown economy; an attempt to green wash the wasteful, pollutive and exploitative economic model. A green technology-based market-monopoly is feared. In the emerging climate regulatory era, a brown economic model based on dirty technology will be redundant. Therefore, the same corporate elements would be targeting a monopoly on the green technology to dominate a green growth-based economy. The rich would continue to grow and the poor would continue to suffer in such a transfer from brown to green economy.
Green Economy or Sustainable Economy?
Defining a Green Economy is still a process in progress. The ‘UNEP Green Economy Report 2011’states; “a green economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. A green economy can be thought of as one which is low carbon, resource efficient and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in income and employment should be driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.”
While the definition is attractive and strategically includes some key words echoed by the different interests of the world, it’s also noticeable that they continue to forge growth and efficiency as the way forward. This makes us pause and wonder: Are the same people and institutions responsible for the suffering of the world’s poor behind defining the green economy? A Green Economy should be to replace the current economic order of inequity, destruction and greed! Sustainable Economy (or a true Green Economy) should be an economic system that ensures social equity, protects the ecological balance and creates economic sufficiency. The core idea of a Green Economy should be to enforce Sustainability, specifically the wellbeing of all people and the biodiversity of Earth’s ecosystems.
Foundations of a Sustainable Economy
So, what are the foundations for a Sustainable Economy? At the centre of any emerging economic model should be the vision of an ‘equity’ based world order. Equality for all should be the aspiration, and not the luxury of the twenty percent of the world’s people who enjoy the exploitation of eighty percent of the resources.
Such a system should rejects unsustainable consumption and production habits and promotes sustainable lifestyles and livelihoods. “Efficiency” paradigms continue to justify the current consumption levels that are unsustainable and proposes “less waste” as a solution. That is no longer acceptable. We need to move from a mere “efficiency” focus to sufficiency-based sustainable development paradigms. Just because the resources are harder to acquire for those rich-country consumers, “efficiency” will not be an adequate exercise. They need to cut down on their unsustainable consumption patterns and start looking for futures based on sufficiency. Sufficiency should be noted as an approach towards self-reliance and contentment.
The growth-based economic model has long served the greedy “needs” of the rich. This growth- and greed-based economic development model should be replaced with the “sharing-caring-flourishing economic mindset”. If growth had been a viable model to eradicate poverty on Earth, poverty would have ceased to exist long ago. For example, no Indian should go hungry at any given moment as they as a nation produce a surplus of grain. Prominent ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva says, “The gain in yields of industrially produced crops is based on a theft of food from other species and the rural poor in the Third World. That is why, as more grain is produced and traded globally, more people go hungry in the Third World”. ”.
Conclusions
Our commitment in an emerging green economy should be towards creating ‘wellbeing & happiness for all’, not for a few. Capital growth without distribution will not serve humanity, face climate change and eradicate poverty, or achieve sustainable development. For this to happen, we need to cultivate mindfulness not greed. Women in South Asia in general provide the ingredients of leading such a green economy in driving sustainable development; they are sensitive towards the needs of others; they care about the wellbeing of others; they strive for peace; they are content with staying within the resources of their surroundings. The diversity, simplicity, sensitivity of South Asian women need to be integrated in an emerging green economy. Such a green economy that is inclusive of the active engagement of women of South Asia can lead us towards sustainable development.
(Uchita de Zoysa is Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development and Convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM. Contact: [email protected])
Millennium Consumption Goals:
a fair proposal from the poor to the rich
(the above is adopted fro the Editorial for Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy Journal issue: Spring 2011 | Volume 7 | Issue 1 - http://sspp.proquest.com/archives/vol7iss1/editorial.dezoysa.html)
Introduction
In preparation for another Earth Summit in 2012, Professor Mohan Munasinghe, a former vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has proposed establishing the Millennium Consumption Goals (MCGs) for the rich on the planet. This proposition has already gained considerable international support and the MCG Initiative is now gathering momentum in the United Nations and at many subsidiary levels (i.e., country, city, community, enterprise, and even individual) and is being pursued by a broad network of stakeholders from civil society, business, academia, and government.
The proposal states that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were formulated by the United Nations on behalf of the poor and the MCGs would constitute a complementary process to facilitate sustainable development on Earth. The imminent failure of the MDGs in terms of poverty eradication might prompt some to question the value of the MCGs. At the same time, prior efforts to voluntarily regulate the behavior of the overconsuming 20% of the planet’s population have not been successful and the MCGs will require serious political willpower and an international mandate to succeed. From another perspective, the MCGs may provide impetus to the MDGs by focusing on managing the consumption patterns of the rich, who continue to deprive the poor of consumption opportunities. In this context, the focus of the MCGs should be not only to shift the consumption of the rich toward sustainability, but also to ensure that the poor have adequate consumption opportunities and the growing consumer classes in the developing nations adopt more sustainable modes of consumption.
The MCG Proposal
The MCG proposal was officially presented during the first intercessional of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (or UNCSD2012) in New York in January, 2011. At this time, Munasinghe introduced the proposal as follows:
Millennium consumption goals (MCGs) could help make our development path more sustainable, by focusing on the 1.4 billion people in the richest 20% of the world’s population. They consume over 80% of global output, or 60 times more than the poorest 20%. Instead of viewing the rich as a problem, they should be persuaded to contribute to the solution. The MCGs will complement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) designed to help the world’s poor. The MCGs need not be mandatory targets, but rather a set of benchmarks to be achieved by a combination of voluntary actions.
Munasinghe argues that a major obstacle to sustainable development is unsustainable consumption, production, and resource exploitation by the richest members of the global community, hinting that this is the cause of problems satisfying the MDGs. He continues, indicating that the same consumerist and exploitative behavior is responsible for climate change, which intensifies multiple threats such as poverty, hunger, illness, water and energy scarcity, and conflict.
Climate Sustainability
Munasinghe provides not only a fair assessment of current challenges, but a welcome argument for climate justice and right-to-development forums. A small group of rich and powerful countries, companies, and people continue to drag the rest of us through great grief toward a dangerous destiny that will have devastating long-term consequences for all. However, the promoters and governors of the prevailing global system are still convinced that growth, capital accumulation, and free markets provide answers for human survival, or at least for the global elite who largely control the Earth’s resources, trade, and capital. The rest, especially the half of the world that lives in poverty, is insignificant in global decision making; the poor only constitute numbers in the system.
In my recent book (de Zoysa, 2009), entitled It Has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY, I argue that the global elite, both North and South, continue to drive the world away from sustainability and toward climate change: “Climate change is a destiny determining phenomenon and all people need to be aware of their rights and responsibilities. But, half of the world’s population remains under poverty and is being deprived of their rights towards the basic human needs. Meanwhile, the wasteful lifestyles and irresponsible behavior of the rich and powerful continues to endanger the life of all humans.”
Regulating Consumption
Munasinghe argues that there are many advantages to a set of MCGs as a complementary path to global sustainability. He states,
First, the rich live in both developed and developing countries, so the idea cuts across country boundaries, thus reducing the potential for deadlock due to nationalistic self-interest. Second, since they account for over 80% of consumption and pollution (including carbon emissions), small shifts towards more sustainable consumption can significantly reduce the burden on the environment and free up more resources to raise the consumption of the poor. Third, by relying on influencing the behaviour of large numbers of individual households, the approach has the potential to yield quicker results compared to top down government policies and large, long term industrial investments. Fourth, it mobilizes, empowers and links up sustainable consumers and producers (many of whom operate global supply chains) into a virtuous cycle that could spread quickly.
Several researchers have responded positively to the call for a series of MCGs. Erik Assadourian (2011) from the Worldwatch Institute proposes five goals: halve obesity and overweight rates by 2020; halve the American work week from the current 40+ hours to 20 hours per week; better distribute wealth by raising taxes on the wealthiest; double the use of nonmotorized transport; and guarantee access to health care for all. Philip Vergragt (2011) of the Tellus Institute offers ten goals: reduce the area of personal per capita living space by 25%; deep-energy retrofit residential houses to reduce heating and cooling by 50%; reduce individual driving by 50%; reduce meat and dairy consumption by 80%; cook 80% of meals at home with fresh and possibly local ingredients; reduce working hours by 30%; conserve water by 50%; reduce shopping for new products by 80%; reduce waste by 90%; create progressive taxation of income and assets; create a universally accepted metric for well-being to replace gross domestic product (GDP); and create incentives and policies for living within our ecological and carbon footprint.
These proposals for radical reductions of consumption among the rich are quite acceptable. Yet, the list looks like a set of voluntary commitments by wealthy northern/western consumers and may not bring about the hoped for transformational change. The greatest damage to the planet is by industries consuming natural resources and that needs to be addressed broadly to ensure sustainable consumption.
Greening the Economy or Sufficiency-based Prosperity?
I am not proposing just greening the existing industrial production system. Such efforts would clearly be insufficient to take us toward a carbon-neutral society and to drive us away from materially wasteful lifestyles. A new green world order has to be more authentic than green labeling and green procurement business; sufficiency-based considerations will need to become more pertinent. Sufficiency can first reduce desire for overconsumption through a state of adequacy and contentment. It can also innovate on indigenous knowledge systems, enabling efficient production with reduced waste, so that communities become more self-reliant and less dependent on external resources.
Current efforts promoting a green economy, too, are making civil society and alternative economic thinkers across the world uneasy. Southern activists for equity and justice and northern thinkers about zero-growth economies are increasingly coming to view recent calls for green-economy initiatives as an attempt to greenwash the prevailing brown economy. The critics also fear that the social pillar of sustainable development may be compromised, leading toward continued poverty and inequity. A “sustainable economy” is herewith proposed to be an economic system that ensures social equity, protects ecological balance, and creates economic sufficiency. In other words, a sustainable economy should replace the current economic order of inequity and excessive consumption that has kept half of the world’s people in poverty and created a potential climate catastrophe. The core idea of a green economy, then, should be to enforce sustainability, as in the well-being of all people along with biodiversity. A sustainable economy, therefore, is a more mindful way forward than greening alone.
MCGs for the Poor
Arguably, the affluent can maintain or improve their quality of life, while reducing environmental burdens and using greener technologies and policies, but the poor cannot be expected to do so. Therefore, the MCGs should apply the principle of equity in consumption opportunities, advocating the rights of current and future generations to access resources. The MDGs do not adequately address these equity dimensions, but instead attempt to provide the basic requirements needed to eradicate dollar poverty, and even that goal is set at only half current levels by 2015.
While multilateral financial and governance institutions continue to assess poverty on economic measures, the millions of communities that live outside official economic structures, in nonformal economies, continue to suffer in poverty. The MDGs need to provide a more comprehensive approach not only to how they seek to address poverty based on economic indicators or standard nutrition and goods-supply targets. They should consider in totality the inequities of a world order that continues to deny a decent quality of life for the poor and strives to eliminate poverty on Earth.
Today, in poverty-ridden communities where access to food is hard to come by, waste dumps are the greatest consolation for the poor. Not only do they seek any form of edible leftovers, but in some African neighborhoods people have found a livelihood as hunters of rats living in urban waste mountains. These rats are caught and placed in small cages and fed with more waste. Once the rats have grown to the size of the cage, they are slaughtered and sold in local markets. In communities where a meal is a struggle, a rat on a plate is a luxury. Poverty-eradication programs cannot simply target goals to elevate the poor from this level to consume the bare minimum for survival or nourishment. They, as well as all humans, should be entitled to similar consumption opportunities within a sustainable development framework.
Poverty is a result of a hypocritical global governance system that has promoted unsustainable production regimes and overconsuming societies. This system rewards exploitation by a few and obstructs access to resources by the majority. Ongoing debates over who is responsible for climate change and who should pay for mitigation and adaptation, where the unconcerned decide human destinies, are pointless.
MCGs for Emerging Consumerist Societies
The rich who reside among the poor in the developing countries, just like the rich in the industrialized nations, are threatening to increase global climate change and to multiply the crises of poverty, hunger, illness, and conflict. The rising consumer classes in the developing countries, especially in emerging market leaders such as China, India, and other Asian countries, will become a serious challenge to global food and resource supplies in the future. They, too, will need consumption goals.
The consumerist and wasteful culture that is so prevalent in the North has already infected the South. The megamalls in south Asia and in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand are living examples of how the market induces consumers to feverishly purchase “desire driven wants” more than their “sustainable living based needs.” These malls are parasites that attract us in a subconscious process of buying. The hypermalls and supermarkets—especially in conjunction with advertising—have an amazing power over the human mind, and can induce us into spending on things we do not need and trick us to consume according to the wishes of the market system. Any observer visiting such a gigantic mall would be amazed by the volumes of people flocking daily and hourly and the amount of unwanted consumption that takes place. Rapid economic growth, higher-consumption lifestyles, constant switching to modern and sophisticated technology and equipment, and flashy personal cars have all become indicators and guidelines for newly emerging economies. These are not just impulse actions by the growing number of consumers with purchasing power, but part and parcel of the structural adjustment policies enforced by governments under the influence of the multilateral donor regimes that cater to the agendas of the rich industrialized nations.
The way forward toward prosperity in the emerging nations and societies cannot be through wasteful consumerism. It has to be based on the foundations of sustainable development that can ensure peace, prosperity, well-being, and increased happiness spread more equitably.
Voluntary Commitments and Civil Action at Multiple Levels
In the final analysis, Munasinghe proposes voluntary commitments and civil action to place pressure on governments. He says, “the focus is on setting targets for ACTION NOW by civil society and business, without having to wait for governments, which move glacially. This process also puts pressure on leaders who lack the political will to act quickly and decisively.”
He further argues that,
[W]hile the initiative is pursued at the United Nations and international levels, progress can be made more rapidly at the grassroots. Many communities, companies, and cities have already announced targets for carbon emissions, energy and water conservation, etc., which constitute their own form of MCGs. Those who take early action will be at a competitive advantage, as we enter a future constrained by resource shortages.
Unfortunately, more voluntary commitments are needed from business, which continues to be the greatest obstacle to sustainable development. Just as the notion of corporate social responsibility has often been used simply as a promotional technique, firms have quickly jumped into advocating for an undefined green economy. Just as they benefitted from adopting small projects to support the MDGs, businesses may voluntarily take part only in the profit and public relations sides of the MCGs. To avoid having the MCGs become another attractive greenwash program for token feel-good action, a clear international agreement is needed. The two most readily accessible pathways are through the United Nations Ten-Year Framework of Programs on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP) due to commence in 2012 and the United Nations Rio+20 Conference next year. The 10YFP, led by the United Nations Environment Program, after nine years of preparatory work has become a major disappointment. The effort has only resulted in loose voluntary commitments by governments and corporations in addition to an unimpressive assortment of conveniently sourced programs in a few parts of the world. The MCGs could serve as an instructive way to enhance the program’s value. The Rio+20 process, too, is heading toward a low-commitment outcome. The theme of the Green Economy in Relation to Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development being advanced for the event next year in Brazil could easily be bolstered by incorporation of the proposed MCGs.1 In addition, the institutional framework for sustainable development could benefit from considering the possibilities of including a series of MCGs in the core of emergent global governance structures.
Conclusion
The prevailing unsustainable consumption and production system is the largest contributing factor to climate change, poverty, and inequality on Earth and thus requires greater emphasis and regulatory focus at the international level. If anthropogenic climate change is to be controlled, then developing a regulatory framework for sustainable consumption and production must become a priority. In very simple terms, unsustainable consumption and production needs to be effectively managed on a global scale, in parallel to emission cuts, as a solution to both problems of climate change and poverty. It would be naïve to imagine at this moment that governments or the business community will voluntarily reduce their consumption and change their profitable and wasteful habits out of deference to the planetary health and the conditions of the poor. The MCGs, therefore, should not be a substitute for an international agreement on sustainable consumption and production, but a supplementary program with strong enforcement mechanisms to help advance the objectives of this international framework.
Notes
1 See Earthsummit2012, Green Economy in the Context of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Developmenthttp://www.earthsummit2012.org/index.php/component/content/article/149-green-economy-poverty-sd-context/236-green-economy-landing.
References
Assadorian, E. 2011. It’s Time for Millennium Consumption Goals. Worldwatch Institute. January 26. http://blogs.worldwatch.org/transformingcultures/mcgs.de Zoysa, U. 2009. It Has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY. Colombo, Sri Lanka: D&D Strategic Solutions.
Munasinghe, M. 2011. Millennium consumption goals (MCG): how the rich can make the planet more sustainable. The Island Online January 31. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=17248.
Vegragt, P. 2011. The Millennium Consumption Goals (MCG): A Concrete Proposal. Unpublished Report. http://www.mohanmunasinghe.com/pdf/Vergragt-MCG-8Feb2011.pdf.
Introduction
In preparation for another Earth Summit in 2012, Professor Mohan Munasinghe, a former vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has proposed establishing the Millennium Consumption Goals (MCGs) for the rich on the planet. This proposition has already gained considerable international support and the MCG Initiative is now gathering momentum in the United Nations and at many subsidiary levels (i.e., country, city, community, enterprise, and even individual) and is being pursued by a broad network of stakeholders from civil society, business, academia, and government.
The proposal states that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were formulated by the United Nations on behalf of the poor and the MCGs would constitute a complementary process to facilitate sustainable development on Earth. The imminent failure of the MDGs in terms of poverty eradication might prompt some to question the value of the MCGs. At the same time, prior efforts to voluntarily regulate the behavior of the overconsuming 20% of the planet’s population have not been successful and the MCGs will require serious political willpower and an international mandate to succeed. From another perspective, the MCGs may provide impetus to the MDGs by focusing on managing the consumption patterns of the rich, who continue to deprive the poor of consumption opportunities. In this context, the focus of the MCGs should be not only to shift the consumption of the rich toward sustainability, but also to ensure that the poor have adequate consumption opportunities and the growing consumer classes in the developing nations adopt more sustainable modes of consumption.
The MCG Proposal
The MCG proposal was officially presented during the first intercessional of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (or UNCSD2012) in New York in January, 2011. At this time, Munasinghe introduced the proposal as follows:
Millennium consumption goals (MCGs) could help make our development path more sustainable, by focusing on the 1.4 billion people in the richest 20% of the world’s population. They consume over 80% of global output, or 60 times more than the poorest 20%. Instead of viewing the rich as a problem, they should be persuaded to contribute to the solution. The MCGs will complement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) designed to help the world’s poor. The MCGs need not be mandatory targets, but rather a set of benchmarks to be achieved by a combination of voluntary actions.
Munasinghe argues that a major obstacle to sustainable development is unsustainable consumption, production, and resource exploitation by the richest members of the global community, hinting that this is the cause of problems satisfying the MDGs. He continues, indicating that the same consumerist and exploitative behavior is responsible for climate change, which intensifies multiple threats such as poverty, hunger, illness, water and energy scarcity, and conflict.
Climate Sustainability
Munasinghe provides not only a fair assessment of current challenges, but a welcome argument for climate justice and right-to-development forums. A small group of rich and powerful countries, companies, and people continue to drag the rest of us through great grief toward a dangerous destiny that will have devastating long-term consequences for all. However, the promoters and governors of the prevailing global system are still convinced that growth, capital accumulation, and free markets provide answers for human survival, or at least for the global elite who largely control the Earth’s resources, trade, and capital. The rest, especially the half of the world that lives in poverty, is insignificant in global decision making; the poor only constitute numbers in the system.
In my recent book (de Zoysa, 2009), entitled It Has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY, I argue that the global elite, both North and South, continue to drive the world away from sustainability and toward climate change: “Climate change is a destiny determining phenomenon and all people need to be aware of their rights and responsibilities. But, half of the world’s population remains under poverty and is being deprived of their rights towards the basic human needs. Meanwhile, the wasteful lifestyles and irresponsible behavior of the rich and powerful continues to endanger the life of all humans.”
Regulating Consumption
Munasinghe argues that there are many advantages to a set of MCGs as a complementary path to global sustainability. He states,
First, the rich live in both developed and developing countries, so the idea cuts across country boundaries, thus reducing the potential for deadlock due to nationalistic self-interest. Second, since they account for over 80% of consumption and pollution (including carbon emissions), small shifts towards more sustainable consumption can significantly reduce the burden on the environment and free up more resources to raise the consumption of the poor. Third, by relying on influencing the behaviour of large numbers of individual households, the approach has the potential to yield quicker results compared to top down government policies and large, long term industrial investments. Fourth, it mobilizes, empowers and links up sustainable consumers and producers (many of whom operate global supply chains) into a virtuous cycle that could spread quickly.
Several researchers have responded positively to the call for a series of MCGs. Erik Assadourian (2011) from the Worldwatch Institute proposes five goals: halve obesity and overweight rates by 2020; halve the American work week from the current 40+ hours to 20 hours per week; better distribute wealth by raising taxes on the wealthiest; double the use of nonmotorized transport; and guarantee access to health care for all. Philip Vergragt (2011) of the Tellus Institute offers ten goals: reduce the area of personal per capita living space by 25%; deep-energy retrofit residential houses to reduce heating and cooling by 50%; reduce individual driving by 50%; reduce meat and dairy consumption by 80%; cook 80% of meals at home with fresh and possibly local ingredients; reduce working hours by 30%; conserve water by 50%; reduce shopping for new products by 80%; reduce waste by 90%; create progressive taxation of income and assets; create a universally accepted metric for well-being to replace gross domestic product (GDP); and create incentives and policies for living within our ecological and carbon footprint.
These proposals for radical reductions of consumption among the rich are quite acceptable. Yet, the list looks like a set of voluntary commitments by wealthy northern/western consumers and may not bring about the hoped for transformational change. The greatest damage to the planet is by industries consuming natural resources and that needs to be addressed broadly to ensure sustainable consumption.
Greening the Economy or Sufficiency-based Prosperity?
I am not proposing just greening the existing industrial production system. Such efforts would clearly be insufficient to take us toward a carbon-neutral society and to drive us away from materially wasteful lifestyles. A new green world order has to be more authentic than green labeling and green procurement business; sufficiency-based considerations will need to become more pertinent. Sufficiency can first reduce desire for overconsumption through a state of adequacy and contentment. It can also innovate on indigenous knowledge systems, enabling efficient production with reduced waste, so that communities become more self-reliant and less dependent on external resources.
Current efforts promoting a green economy, too, are making civil society and alternative economic thinkers across the world uneasy. Southern activists for equity and justice and northern thinkers about zero-growth economies are increasingly coming to view recent calls for green-economy initiatives as an attempt to greenwash the prevailing brown economy. The critics also fear that the social pillar of sustainable development may be compromised, leading toward continued poverty and inequity. A “sustainable economy” is herewith proposed to be an economic system that ensures social equity, protects ecological balance, and creates economic sufficiency. In other words, a sustainable economy should replace the current economic order of inequity and excessive consumption that has kept half of the world’s people in poverty and created a potential climate catastrophe. The core idea of a green economy, then, should be to enforce sustainability, as in the well-being of all people along with biodiversity. A sustainable economy, therefore, is a more mindful way forward than greening alone.
MCGs for the Poor
Arguably, the affluent can maintain or improve their quality of life, while reducing environmental burdens and using greener technologies and policies, but the poor cannot be expected to do so. Therefore, the MCGs should apply the principle of equity in consumption opportunities, advocating the rights of current and future generations to access resources. The MDGs do not adequately address these equity dimensions, but instead attempt to provide the basic requirements needed to eradicate dollar poverty, and even that goal is set at only half current levels by 2015.
While multilateral financial and governance institutions continue to assess poverty on economic measures, the millions of communities that live outside official economic structures, in nonformal economies, continue to suffer in poverty. The MDGs need to provide a more comprehensive approach not only to how they seek to address poverty based on economic indicators or standard nutrition and goods-supply targets. They should consider in totality the inequities of a world order that continues to deny a decent quality of life for the poor and strives to eliminate poverty on Earth.
Today, in poverty-ridden communities where access to food is hard to come by, waste dumps are the greatest consolation for the poor. Not only do they seek any form of edible leftovers, but in some African neighborhoods people have found a livelihood as hunters of rats living in urban waste mountains. These rats are caught and placed in small cages and fed with more waste. Once the rats have grown to the size of the cage, they are slaughtered and sold in local markets. In communities where a meal is a struggle, a rat on a plate is a luxury. Poverty-eradication programs cannot simply target goals to elevate the poor from this level to consume the bare minimum for survival or nourishment. They, as well as all humans, should be entitled to similar consumption opportunities within a sustainable development framework.
Poverty is a result of a hypocritical global governance system that has promoted unsustainable production regimes and overconsuming societies. This system rewards exploitation by a few and obstructs access to resources by the majority. Ongoing debates over who is responsible for climate change and who should pay for mitigation and adaptation, where the unconcerned decide human destinies, are pointless.
MCGs for Emerging Consumerist Societies
The rich who reside among the poor in the developing countries, just like the rich in the industrialized nations, are threatening to increase global climate change and to multiply the crises of poverty, hunger, illness, and conflict. The rising consumer classes in the developing countries, especially in emerging market leaders such as China, India, and other Asian countries, will become a serious challenge to global food and resource supplies in the future. They, too, will need consumption goals.
The consumerist and wasteful culture that is so prevalent in the North has already infected the South. The megamalls in south Asia and in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand are living examples of how the market induces consumers to feverishly purchase “desire driven wants” more than their “sustainable living based needs.” These malls are parasites that attract us in a subconscious process of buying. The hypermalls and supermarkets—especially in conjunction with advertising—have an amazing power over the human mind, and can induce us into spending on things we do not need and trick us to consume according to the wishes of the market system. Any observer visiting such a gigantic mall would be amazed by the volumes of people flocking daily and hourly and the amount of unwanted consumption that takes place. Rapid economic growth, higher-consumption lifestyles, constant switching to modern and sophisticated technology and equipment, and flashy personal cars have all become indicators and guidelines for newly emerging economies. These are not just impulse actions by the growing number of consumers with purchasing power, but part and parcel of the structural adjustment policies enforced by governments under the influence of the multilateral donor regimes that cater to the agendas of the rich industrialized nations.
The way forward toward prosperity in the emerging nations and societies cannot be through wasteful consumerism. It has to be based on the foundations of sustainable development that can ensure peace, prosperity, well-being, and increased happiness spread more equitably.
Voluntary Commitments and Civil Action at Multiple Levels
In the final analysis, Munasinghe proposes voluntary commitments and civil action to place pressure on governments. He says, “the focus is on setting targets for ACTION NOW by civil society and business, without having to wait for governments, which move glacially. This process also puts pressure on leaders who lack the political will to act quickly and decisively.”
He further argues that,
[W]hile the initiative is pursued at the United Nations and international levels, progress can be made more rapidly at the grassroots. Many communities, companies, and cities have already announced targets for carbon emissions, energy and water conservation, etc., which constitute their own form of MCGs. Those who take early action will be at a competitive advantage, as we enter a future constrained by resource shortages.
Unfortunately, more voluntary commitments are needed from business, which continues to be the greatest obstacle to sustainable development. Just as the notion of corporate social responsibility has often been used simply as a promotional technique, firms have quickly jumped into advocating for an undefined green economy. Just as they benefitted from adopting small projects to support the MDGs, businesses may voluntarily take part only in the profit and public relations sides of the MCGs. To avoid having the MCGs become another attractive greenwash program for token feel-good action, a clear international agreement is needed. The two most readily accessible pathways are through the United Nations Ten-Year Framework of Programs on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP) due to commence in 2012 and the United Nations Rio+20 Conference next year. The 10YFP, led by the United Nations Environment Program, after nine years of preparatory work has become a major disappointment. The effort has only resulted in loose voluntary commitments by governments and corporations in addition to an unimpressive assortment of conveniently sourced programs in a few parts of the world. The MCGs could serve as an instructive way to enhance the program’s value. The Rio+20 process, too, is heading toward a low-commitment outcome. The theme of the Green Economy in Relation to Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development being advanced for the event next year in Brazil could easily be bolstered by incorporation of the proposed MCGs.1 In addition, the institutional framework for sustainable development could benefit from considering the possibilities of including a series of MCGs in the core of emergent global governance structures.
Conclusion
The prevailing unsustainable consumption and production system is the largest contributing factor to climate change, poverty, and inequality on Earth and thus requires greater emphasis and regulatory focus at the international level. If anthropogenic climate change is to be controlled, then developing a regulatory framework for sustainable consumption and production must become a priority. In very simple terms, unsustainable consumption and production needs to be effectively managed on a global scale, in parallel to emission cuts, as a solution to both problems of climate change and poverty. It would be naïve to imagine at this moment that governments or the business community will voluntarily reduce their consumption and change their profitable and wasteful habits out of deference to the planetary health and the conditions of the poor. The MCGs, therefore, should not be a substitute for an international agreement on sustainable consumption and production, but a supplementary program with strong enforcement mechanisms to help advance the objectives of this international framework.
Notes
1 See Earthsummit2012, Green Economy in the Context of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Developmenthttp://www.earthsummit2012.org/index.php/component/content/article/149-green-economy-poverty-sd-context/236-green-economy-landing.
References
Assadorian, E. 2011. It’s Time for Millennium Consumption Goals. Worldwatch Institute. January 26. http://blogs.worldwatch.org/transformingcultures/mcgs.de Zoysa, U. 2009. It Has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY. Colombo, Sri Lanka: D&D Strategic Solutions.
Munasinghe, M. 2011. Millennium consumption goals (MCG): how the rich can make the planet more sustainable. The Island Online January 31. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=17248.
Vegragt, P. 2011. The Millennium Consumption Goals (MCG): A Concrete Proposal. Unpublished Report. http://www.mohanmunasinghe.com/pdf/Vergragt-MCG-8Feb2011.pdf.
Who Wants to Govern Sustainable Development?
(from OUTREACH, 8th March 2011, New York, UNCSD2012 PrepCom2) ... Sustainable development has been talked for over four
decades in and out of the United Nations System. Now it’s time to start
governing sustainable development. But, where is sustainable development? Not
on earth! So how do we govern a non-existing process?
One agency, UNEP, wants to be in-charge of all multilateral environmental agreements (MEA). They are calling for International Environmental Governance (IEG). UNEP says they need to be empowered to be able to manage all the MEA’s and govern the worlds environmental regulations; or be the environmental cop (policeman) of the world. In this context there has been talk of creating a World Environment Organization to play that environmental super cop role.
On the other hand, the Rio+20 Summit wants to have an institutional framework for sustainable development. This means that the UN wants to govern sustainable development. In this context a proposal is made to transform the Commission for Sustainable Development into a Council for Sustainable Development. This is the UN super cop for sustainable development.
So, if sustainable development is not existent how or what are they planning to govern? Perhaps the UN knows something that we do not? May be sustainable development is coming soon. Perhaps the Rio+20 Summit in 2012 is going the ensure that sustainable development is going to happen on earth soon after.
In 1992 Maurice Strong, the Secretary General of the first Earth Summit called it the last chance to save earth. What he meant was thar sustainable development will be finally achieved and the earth will be saved. But, sadly we were not saved during the past twenty years. So did we lose the last chance? Or with Rio+20 we have another last chance? Last chance for human survival on earth or last chance for sustainable development on earth?
Secretary-General of Rio 2012, Mr. Sha Zukang, says the Earth Summit in 2012 is about the future. He says it’s not a Rio+20 but a Rio2012 Summit. Does that mean that we now have a new beginning for sustainable development. A new hope on Earth? So, is that why they want to govern sustainable development? They? Who? The United Nations!
But, Lalanath de Silva from World Resources Institute (WRI) reminds us that governance is meant to be for governments and not for United Nations. If so, why is the UN so adamant on governing the environment or sustainable development? Do they now see their role above the governments that give them the mandate to operate on earth. Are they no longer facilitators of keeping the nations united? Are they now the governors of the world affairs? So, are governments brought to Rio in 2012 to give the UN a mandate to govern their sovereign national environments and sustainable development destinies?
But, do we want to believe that this mandate given to the UN will result in sustainable development on Earth. After forty years of sustainable development talk, it’s hard to believe that the UN or the multilateral system can make sustainable development a reality.
May be I am totally wrong. Perhaps the UN is not talking about governing sustainable development. May be they are talking about governing sustainable development talk. UN is specialised in talking sustainability. International environmental conferences are widely believed to be 'talk shops'. For nearly four decades the UN intergovernmental talk shops have deliberated on saving the earth and implementing sustainable development. But, since then the climate has further deteriorated, hunger in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia has risen, and the global economy has crashed. 'Talking sustainability' has become one of the best practised actions by the multilateral system and has spread to other sectors as well. People now allege that talking sustainability has become a profitable business.
So, is the Rio+20 track on an institutional framework for sustainable development meant to establish a mechanism to govern sustainable development talk shops? But who would want to continue for another forty years talking sustainability. Rio2012 Summit brings to peak the tolerance level of sustainability talk on earth. If this summit fails, we are in danger of losing all the good hype we have created for the past decades to make sustainable development a global public concern and dialogue. Sustainable development talk shops to are in danger. So what do we govern at the end of a Rio2012 Summit?
(Uchita de Zoysa is Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development and Convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM. Contact: [email protected])
One agency, UNEP, wants to be in-charge of all multilateral environmental agreements (MEA). They are calling for International Environmental Governance (IEG). UNEP says they need to be empowered to be able to manage all the MEA’s and govern the worlds environmental regulations; or be the environmental cop (policeman) of the world. In this context there has been talk of creating a World Environment Organization to play that environmental super cop role.
On the other hand, the Rio+20 Summit wants to have an institutional framework for sustainable development. This means that the UN wants to govern sustainable development. In this context a proposal is made to transform the Commission for Sustainable Development into a Council for Sustainable Development. This is the UN super cop for sustainable development.
So, if sustainable development is not existent how or what are they planning to govern? Perhaps the UN knows something that we do not? May be sustainable development is coming soon. Perhaps the Rio+20 Summit in 2012 is going the ensure that sustainable development is going to happen on earth soon after.
In 1992 Maurice Strong, the Secretary General of the first Earth Summit called it the last chance to save earth. What he meant was thar sustainable development will be finally achieved and the earth will be saved. But, sadly we were not saved during the past twenty years. So did we lose the last chance? Or with Rio+20 we have another last chance? Last chance for human survival on earth or last chance for sustainable development on earth?
Secretary-General of Rio 2012, Mr. Sha Zukang, says the Earth Summit in 2012 is about the future. He says it’s not a Rio+20 but a Rio2012 Summit. Does that mean that we now have a new beginning for sustainable development. A new hope on Earth? So, is that why they want to govern sustainable development? They? Who? The United Nations!
But, Lalanath de Silva from World Resources Institute (WRI) reminds us that governance is meant to be for governments and not for United Nations. If so, why is the UN so adamant on governing the environment or sustainable development? Do they now see their role above the governments that give them the mandate to operate on earth. Are they no longer facilitators of keeping the nations united? Are they now the governors of the world affairs? So, are governments brought to Rio in 2012 to give the UN a mandate to govern their sovereign national environments and sustainable development destinies?
But, do we want to believe that this mandate given to the UN will result in sustainable development on Earth. After forty years of sustainable development talk, it’s hard to believe that the UN or the multilateral system can make sustainable development a reality.
May be I am totally wrong. Perhaps the UN is not talking about governing sustainable development. May be they are talking about governing sustainable development talk. UN is specialised in talking sustainability. International environmental conferences are widely believed to be 'talk shops'. For nearly four decades the UN intergovernmental talk shops have deliberated on saving the earth and implementing sustainable development. But, since then the climate has further deteriorated, hunger in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia has risen, and the global economy has crashed. 'Talking sustainability' has become one of the best practised actions by the multilateral system and has spread to other sectors as well. People now allege that talking sustainability has become a profitable business.
So, is the Rio+20 track on an institutional framework for sustainable development meant to establish a mechanism to govern sustainable development talk shops? But who would want to continue for another forty years talking sustainability. Rio2012 Summit brings to peak the tolerance level of sustainability talk on earth. If this summit fails, we are in danger of losing all the good hype we have created for the past decades to make sustainable development a global public concern and dialogue. Sustainable development talk shops to are in danger. So what do we govern at the end of a Rio2012 Summit?
(Uchita de Zoysa is Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development and Convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM. Contact: [email protected])
Can a Green Economy Provide Foundations for Equity and Sustainability on Earth?
(from OUTREACH, 7th March 2011, New York, UNCSD2012 PrepCom2) ... Future makes little meaning when the mind of greed is
determined to prevail. Some old brown approaches to frame a green economy raises
concerns whether the same actors of the prevailing global system of inequity are
planning to green the greed. This feeling makes us worry that the system actors
are trying out the next best strategy to continue with the exploitation of
resources and poor.
The United Nations Organization through the Rio 2012 Summit is providing the best venue for to further stretch the time of the prevailing global socio-economic system on earth; a system that keeps half of the population in poverty and increases vulnerability of the rest through climate change. More desperation would provide greater markets for those who live in profit temples of greed. Now that the faith on the capital growth economic system has crumbled, a new short term remedy is needed. Old games and new tricks are at work. It is called the ‘Green Economy’ and promises the fallen economy a new hope to grow; grow differently but surely as in ‘Green Growth’.
Not just business, and not just governments, but even civil society and the commonest person on the street wants to know what a new green economy is. Business would like to simplify the entire meaning and call it the opportunities for employees to find work in places that produces goods and services that are green and clean. They would like to imply that consumers would be benefited by a cleaner planet and a healthier life. That’s what they mean when they say green jobs, green technology, green production or green consumption. But at the end, they do not wish for levels of consumerism to be lowered but only made efficient and greener; a transition strategy to keep the planet in balance with the profit not eroding.
When governments talk about green growth, they mean that consumer wellbeing through higher consumption will progress through green, clean and healthy strategies. Then the resource extraction can continue and they only need to find a way to decouple the environment from economic activities. Of course many of us by now realize that growth is not just a mind trap or convincing strategy for nation building but an essential ingredient of the greed based governance model that wants to accumulate wealth to retain power; they call it governance. Therefore, the brown economy policies need to be greened, but the destination remains growth.
When civil society, particularly from the South, talk about equitable opportunities in green consumption they expect poverty to be eradicated; equity is what they are calling for. The idea would be that everyone consumes up to a level of justification of human wellbeing. While they would want poverty to be eradicated, they would be skeptical that their governments with rapid economic growth policies would be able to provide for wellbeing for all their citizens. At the end, the national economies will grow with new market giants and a new emerging consumer class on earth while poverty remains a convenient reality.
But, when people on the street talk about happiness they do not specifically ask their governments to green grow the economy or provide them new green technology. When new green taxes are imposed or regulations are tightened they get further confused. They want to know how all these good intentions of greening the economy ends up making life of the common person more miserable than it was.
So can a green economy provide foundations for equity and sustainability on Earth? The answer lies within the question if the Green Economy is founded to establish sustainable development or to find a new market opportunity in green technology and to enhance green growth? Green technology is growing fast and is becoming the next most profitable business on earth. In a growing international and national climate regulatory regime, green technology will become the best market opportunity for the industrialized countries and their big corporations to continue with their profit based motives of business. Green growth will be exercised to keep the greed of accumulation continued in a different way on earth. Therefore, the idea of green growth may not embark on distribution of the growing asserts to create equitable consumption opportunities for all. In this context a green economy is looked with lot of suspicion.
What we are asking for is a Sustainable Economy on earth. Why cannot this be discussed at Rio2012? A Sustainable Economy (or a true Green Economy) should be an economic system that ensures social equity, protects the ecological balance and creates economic sufficiency. In other words a Green Economy should be the replacement of the current economic order of inequity, destruction and greed that has kept half of the global people in poverty and created a potential climate catastrophe. The core idea of a GE should be to enforce Sustainability as in wellbeing of all people and the biodiversity.
(Uchita de Zoysa is Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development and Convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM. Contact: [email protected])
The United Nations Organization through the Rio 2012 Summit is providing the best venue for to further stretch the time of the prevailing global socio-economic system on earth; a system that keeps half of the population in poverty and increases vulnerability of the rest through climate change. More desperation would provide greater markets for those who live in profit temples of greed. Now that the faith on the capital growth economic system has crumbled, a new short term remedy is needed. Old games and new tricks are at work. It is called the ‘Green Economy’ and promises the fallen economy a new hope to grow; grow differently but surely as in ‘Green Growth’.
Not just business, and not just governments, but even civil society and the commonest person on the street wants to know what a new green economy is. Business would like to simplify the entire meaning and call it the opportunities for employees to find work in places that produces goods and services that are green and clean. They would like to imply that consumers would be benefited by a cleaner planet and a healthier life. That’s what they mean when they say green jobs, green technology, green production or green consumption. But at the end, they do not wish for levels of consumerism to be lowered but only made efficient and greener; a transition strategy to keep the planet in balance with the profit not eroding.
When governments talk about green growth, they mean that consumer wellbeing through higher consumption will progress through green, clean and healthy strategies. Then the resource extraction can continue and they only need to find a way to decouple the environment from economic activities. Of course many of us by now realize that growth is not just a mind trap or convincing strategy for nation building but an essential ingredient of the greed based governance model that wants to accumulate wealth to retain power; they call it governance. Therefore, the brown economy policies need to be greened, but the destination remains growth.
When civil society, particularly from the South, talk about equitable opportunities in green consumption they expect poverty to be eradicated; equity is what they are calling for. The idea would be that everyone consumes up to a level of justification of human wellbeing. While they would want poverty to be eradicated, they would be skeptical that their governments with rapid economic growth policies would be able to provide for wellbeing for all their citizens. At the end, the national economies will grow with new market giants and a new emerging consumer class on earth while poverty remains a convenient reality.
But, when people on the street talk about happiness they do not specifically ask their governments to green grow the economy or provide them new green technology. When new green taxes are imposed or regulations are tightened they get further confused. They want to know how all these good intentions of greening the economy ends up making life of the common person more miserable than it was.
So can a green economy provide foundations for equity and sustainability on Earth? The answer lies within the question if the Green Economy is founded to establish sustainable development or to find a new market opportunity in green technology and to enhance green growth? Green technology is growing fast and is becoming the next most profitable business on earth. In a growing international and national climate regulatory regime, green technology will become the best market opportunity for the industrialized countries and their big corporations to continue with their profit based motives of business. Green growth will be exercised to keep the greed of accumulation continued in a different way on earth. Therefore, the idea of green growth may not embark on distribution of the growing asserts to create equitable consumption opportunities for all. In this context a green economy is looked with lot of suspicion.
What we are asking for is a Sustainable Economy on earth. Why cannot this be discussed at Rio2012? A Sustainable Economy (or a true Green Economy) should be an economic system that ensures social equity, protects the ecological balance and creates economic sufficiency. In other words a Green Economy should be the replacement of the current economic order of inequity, destruction and greed that has kept half of the global people in poverty and created a potential climate catastrophe. The core idea of a GE should be to enforce Sustainability as in wellbeing of all people and the biodiversity.
(Uchita de Zoysa is Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development and Convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM. Contact: [email protected])
Bring Back the Rio92 Spirit
(from OUTREACH, 10th January 2011, New York, UNCSD 1st Intersession) - In 1991, I was part of a small group of civil society members that came to Geneva to attend the second preparatory committee meeting of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). We all quickly found common ground in sustainability to work together and when we went to the Earth Summit in 1992 we were in one global forum. From being distant observers in the UN intergovernmental process, civil society had become partners of global sustainability and presenting the position of the independent sectors. We were united as an International NGO Forum to draft the Alternative NGO Treatise and as we all knew that we had to act together to save the earth. So within our enormous diversity we came together in the true spirit of an Earth Summit. Sadly, the Rio+20 process appears to lack the Rio92 spirit and civil society particularly appears to have forgotten the simple concept of “united we thrive and divided we perish”.
A Low Key Earth Summit
Twenty Years later, another Earth Summit is being organized without many nations, governments, civil society, stakeholders or the people knowing much or anything about it. As the self appointed and UN appointed NGO representatives continue enjoy the perks of conferencing, rest of the world awaits to hear what decisions are been made on their behalf. Peoples representatives from the South are marginalized and have no ways and means to contribute to a decisive global event that may have a determining impact on the future of mankind on earth . Even smaller and poorer governments are in the dark while another intercessional meeting for Rio+20 is convened. The success of the earth summit will depend on the ability of the UN secretariat to ensure true global participation and dialogue and not by adding to the hundreds of already existing international agreements for non-action by nations. If not another ‘last chance to save the earth” as mentioned in 1992 will be wasted.
Greening the Trade War
The central theme emerging for Rio+20 is the Green Economy. While greening the economy is a process intended to regulate the world’s unsustainable consumption, production and trading, the objective of creating a green economy appears to be focused more on creating new market opportunities. Greening the existing industrial production system will not help green the economy. It will not take us towards a carbon neutral society and drive us away from the wasteful lifestyles. Are we entering into a new phase of a global trading regime that favours the rich and powerful? And are we using the concepts of environmentalism to green wash the black industrial economies?
Poverty Eradication
While discussing sustainability for the past four decades, the world has failed in eradication hunger and poverty on earth. Currently half of the world humanity are under poverty and are desperately struggling to survive on a daily basis. Poverty is a result of a hypocritical global governance system. This is a system that has promoted unsustainable production regimes and over-consuming societies to grow further; a system that rewards exploitation by a few and obstructs access to resources by the majority; a system where the unconcerned and non-compassionate continue to decide the destinies of humanity. If any hope for sustainability is to be drawn in the development processes in the developing countries where the poor reside, poverty needs to be eradicated.
Sustainable Consumption and Production
The prevailing unsustainable consumption and production system is the largest contributory factor to both climate change and poverty on earth and thus requires greater emphasis and focus at the levels of international regulation. If anthropogenic climate change is to be controlled, then developing a regulatory framework for sustainable consumption and production must be a priority as well. In very simple terms, unsustainable consumption and production needs to be regulated on earth parallel to emission cuts as a solution to both problems of climate change and poverty.
Climate Sustainability
Climate change is no longer a possibility but a larger reality that has already commenced its ascending. While the Kyoto Protocol is said to be expiring in 2012 and the world is looking for a new binding agreement in 2012, the Rio+20 UNCSD Summit once again fails to include it in its agenda. Sadly, the Climate Change Convention that was signed at the first Earth Summit in 1992 has become out of reach of the sustainable development programme and has become another separate programme in the UN system.
International Sustainable Development Governance
The current International Environmental Governance (IEG) initiative may be two decades too old. Obviously the UN needs to clean up the big mess of managing the multilateral lateral agreements (MEA), But trying to segregate environmental governance would only create another distraction to the sustainability processes and isolate that crucial pillar from economic and social considerations of a way forward on earth. What we require at this stage is to create more central coordination on sustainable development as a holistic approach towards facing climate change, poverty eradication and global peace on earth. This would be a better strategy to achieve wellbeing and happiness of all on earth.
(send your comments to [email protected])
A Low Key Earth Summit
Twenty Years later, another Earth Summit is being organized without many nations, governments, civil society, stakeholders or the people knowing much or anything about it. As the self appointed and UN appointed NGO representatives continue enjoy the perks of conferencing, rest of the world awaits to hear what decisions are been made on their behalf. Peoples representatives from the South are marginalized and have no ways and means to contribute to a decisive global event that may have a determining impact on the future of mankind on earth . Even smaller and poorer governments are in the dark while another intercessional meeting for Rio+20 is convened. The success of the earth summit will depend on the ability of the UN secretariat to ensure true global participation and dialogue and not by adding to the hundreds of already existing international agreements for non-action by nations. If not another ‘last chance to save the earth” as mentioned in 1992 will be wasted.
Greening the Trade War
The central theme emerging for Rio+20 is the Green Economy. While greening the economy is a process intended to regulate the world’s unsustainable consumption, production and trading, the objective of creating a green economy appears to be focused more on creating new market opportunities. Greening the existing industrial production system will not help green the economy. It will not take us towards a carbon neutral society and drive us away from the wasteful lifestyles. Are we entering into a new phase of a global trading regime that favours the rich and powerful? And are we using the concepts of environmentalism to green wash the black industrial economies?
Poverty Eradication
While discussing sustainability for the past four decades, the world has failed in eradication hunger and poverty on earth. Currently half of the world humanity are under poverty and are desperately struggling to survive on a daily basis. Poverty is a result of a hypocritical global governance system. This is a system that has promoted unsustainable production regimes and over-consuming societies to grow further; a system that rewards exploitation by a few and obstructs access to resources by the majority; a system where the unconcerned and non-compassionate continue to decide the destinies of humanity. If any hope for sustainability is to be drawn in the development processes in the developing countries where the poor reside, poverty needs to be eradicated.
Sustainable Consumption and Production
The prevailing unsustainable consumption and production system is the largest contributory factor to both climate change and poverty on earth and thus requires greater emphasis and focus at the levels of international regulation. If anthropogenic climate change is to be controlled, then developing a regulatory framework for sustainable consumption and production must be a priority as well. In very simple terms, unsustainable consumption and production needs to be regulated on earth parallel to emission cuts as a solution to both problems of climate change and poverty.
Climate Sustainability
Climate change is no longer a possibility but a larger reality that has already commenced its ascending. While the Kyoto Protocol is said to be expiring in 2012 and the world is looking for a new binding agreement in 2012, the Rio+20 UNCSD Summit once again fails to include it in its agenda. Sadly, the Climate Change Convention that was signed at the first Earth Summit in 1992 has become out of reach of the sustainable development programme and has become another separate programme in the UN system.
International Sustainable Development Governance
The current International Environmental Governance (IEG) initiative may be two decades too old. Obviously the UN needs to clean up the big mess of managing the multilateral lateral agreements (MEA), But trying to segregate environmental governance would only create another distraction to the sustainability processes and isolate that crucial pillar from economic and social considerations of a way forward on earth. What we require at this stage is to create more central coordination on sustainable development as a holistic approach towards facing climate change, poverty eradication and global peace on earth. This would be a better strategy to achieve wellbeing and happiness of all on earth.
(send your comments to [email protected])
Another Earth Summit on Sustainable Development in 2012: Leading or Misleading the World through a Green Economy?
(This article was written as a firsthand witness to the 1st PrepCom - May 2010 of the Rio+20 Summit held in New York recently.)
‘Sustainable Development’ is one of the most defined, interpreted and misinterpreted words on earth. After two decades since the Brundtland Commission Report on ‘Our Common Future’ published in 1987 famous definition of sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, the world still appears to be unsatisfied. To most of us in the South sustainable development would mean ‘achieving an enduring prosperity, wellbeing and happiness for all where sustainable consumption and production opportunities are ensured in an equitable world that at the same time keeps the ecosystem in a healthy balance’. Yet, many Northern Governments, Multinational Corporations and the United Nations Bureaucracy are not satisfied with the plans already made way back in 1992 when the first ever Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro to achieve such world order.
The 1992 Earth Summit adopted Agenda 21, a comprehensive global plan of action for sustainable development. A decade later, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) was adopted highlighting concrete steps for better implementation of Agenda 21. However, the progress has been slow in achieving these internationally agreed goals and sustainable development has now become a greater challenge. Therefore another Earth Summit to deliberate on sustainable development will be convened in the year 2012 in the same city of Rio de Janeiro.
Do We Need Another Summit?
Why do we need another earth summit? According to Mr. Felix Dodds of the Stakeholder Forum in UK, a UN summit is the best way to draw global attention towards sustainable development. If not the subject continues to be conveniently neglected by policy makers and governments and does not get media attention to enable the sustainability agenda. The main strategist behind getting the UN to declare the Rio+20 Summit, Dodds draws an interesting point about keeping the sustainable development agenda alive. He believes this is not the end all be all of accomplishing the challenges ahead but that it will play a critical role in what we can or cannot succeed in doing. The conversation surrounding transforming our economy should focus on seeing a world that is about fairness, equity and where everyone benefits from the planet, not just a few as our current system allows. In the past 20 years since the Earth Summit in Rio Dodds believes we have lost the plot and emphasizes that more people now have less than two decades ago. As the next 20 years unravel, if we do not commit to remedying the current state of the world immediately, the years to follow will see insecurity of water, food, energy and health worldwide. Dodds calls the world to step up in this small window of opportunity that is presented to us to work together and use Rio +20 as the final piece to bring the family back together for a sustainable and secure future.
The First Preparatory Meeting for UNCSD
The first preparatory committee (PrepCom-1) of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) more popularly known as ‘Rio+20 Summit’ was held in May 2010 in New York at the headquarters of the organization. A rather poorly informed and rather quietly organized event had already attempted to finalise a programme for the proposed 2012 Earth Summit. The organizers appear to be in hurry to conclude the outcome rather early without any sense of responsibility towards national governments and its people and stakeholder groups. They framework of the summit also has been decided with four agenda items; Review of Commitments, Emerging Issues, Green Economy in the context of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development, and Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development.
Why is the UN together with some countries in a mighty hurry to frame another Earth Summit agenda? What troubled the minds of many at the PrepCom-1 was the dominant agenda item called ‘The Green Economy’. While the 2012 Earth Summit is to focus on a Green Economy, everybody including the top UN officials managing this process kept asking “what is a green economy?” While many different definitions and explanations were offered by various interest groups, the closest that the official process could arrive at to justify the agenda item was to compromise on wording that read as “Green Economy in the context of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development”.
The Report of the Secretary General of the Rio+20 Summit released during the PrepCom-1 of the UNCSD says, “ the green economy approach is an attempt to unite under one banner a broad suite of economic instruments relevant to sustainable development”. This is distracting us away from the core strategies of sustainable development as set out in the agenda 21. Everyone is saying we do not still know what a Green Economy means. Why then are we not concentrating on what we know after 20 years of sustainable development discussions and negotiations? All human activities and human societies are not governed by the economy whether it is black or green. German social scientist Wolfgang Sachs in 1992 wrote, "In societies that are not built on the compulsion to amass material wealth, economic activity is not geared to slick zippy output. The economy is closely bound up with life, but it does not stamp its rule and rhythms on the rest of society. Only in the West does the economy dictate the drama and everyone's role in it.”
After 18 years since the first Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, how did we manage to come to a position that we define Sustainable Development under the purview of a Green Economy? Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Greening the economy was supposed to be a strategic transition path towards achieving sustainable development. Poverty eradication too was another strategic pathway. Now the UN once again is changing the direction of the global evolution of the entire sustainable development policy focus and turning it upside down.
Greening the Economy vs. Green Economy
But now that a summit is to take place, should the focus change from sustainable development towards a green economy? United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) backed by some Western European countries appear to be the key proponents advocating a green economy and making a sustainable development summit into a green economy summit.
The Green Economy Initiative of UNEP was launched in 2008 as a response to the economic down turn and is designed to assist governments in “greening” their economies by reshaping and refocusing policies, investments and spending towards a range of sectors, such as clean technologies, renewable energies, water services, green transportation, waste management, green buildings and sustainable agriculture and forests. UNEP says today we need vision, urgent action and strong political engagement to direct financial flows and manage markets to deal with the even greater global challenges of our time. These range from climate change; poverty; job creation for the 1.3 billion people under or unemployed and accelerating natural resource scarcity to the need to fuel and to feed six billion, rising to nine billion people by 2050. A new Green Deal, generating businesses in renewable energies; clean tech ventures, sustainable agriculture, conservation and the intelligent management of the planet's ecosystems and nature-based infrastructure is already underway. Accelerating this transition is at the core of the Green Economy initiative and the best bet for global, sustainable wealth and employment generation for 1.3 billion poor people.
It is rather interesting to note the comment made by the Co-Chair of UNEP Finance Initiative, Ms, Barbara Krumsiek, who is also the CEO of the Washington D.C. headquartered Calvert Group Ltd just prior to the PrepCom-1 of UNCSD. She says, "As the economy and the financial sector begin to recover, we have both an opportunity and obligation to build sustainability into the way global financial companies do business. The challenges finance and investment face on the road to the Rio+20 Summit are considerable. It is a critical time to work for progress and develop the means to deal with the next crisis - which may very well be a natural resources crisis".
While the Business and Industry sector is planning to thrive on the opportunities at Rio+20 by pushing for a green economy, many other stakeholder groups were more pessimistic. Ms. Leida Rijnhout of the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) in Belgium brings to attention the wording of green economy and claims that it is the wrong choice of words to be used. Sustainable Development, which was a term that has taken shape and clear understanding these past 20 years is one in which we should continue to commit to. There is a need to re-assess our economy and reshape it in a way that is sustainable and something closer to a green and fair economy. Rijnhout strengthens this point by pointing to the need for the new economy to be based on equity and real values that fit with the carrying capacity of our planet and social needs. The goal she leaves us with leading up to Rio+20 should not be about greening our greed but about expanding our thinking to adopting sustainable lifestyles respectful and responsible towards global equality.
Representing the Asian Indigenous Women’s Network, Vicky Tauli Corpuz from the Philippines also believes that the green economy concept is distorting what we have achieved with the concept of sustainable development. The economic model that has collapsed and we are trying to resuscitate it based on concepts that will inevitably result in our environmental collapse. We are talking about growth, but growth in the current sense is what Indigenous Peoples see as the source of the environmental problems we are facing. The developed nations encourage the developing nations to create products that we deem useless in just a matter of months. As a result those in developing nations, which are the most dependent on natural resources for survival are the ones suffering. If we continue to believe this as the process of growth, Corpus argues, we will just continue to go down in the natural resources that support our planet. She believes we need a radical restructuring of the entire economic system underpinned by the concept of sustainable development, but that also ensures the support of human rights and the respect of mother earth.
Another veteran from the first Rio Summit, Ms. Chee Yoke-Ling of the Third World Network (TWN) in Malaysia clearly explains that the call since Rio 1992 Earth Summit was on greening the economy rather than making an all new green economy. The focus needs to be on working towards a new global economic system, one in which the ideas of a green economy are at the centre. Yoke-ling places emphasis on the need for the global systems to be collaboratively repaired, regulated and combined with a recommitment to the promises made in Rio 18 years ago. She stress how important it is to get governments moving as there is currently a strong political will to not go sustainable. She believes it is not just about Rio but also about all of the similar bodies and agreements of the United Nations that promote and work to achieve sustainability. There has not necessarily been a deficit to devise structures based on sustainable development but that the failure has come in the implementation of their mandates. Rich countries are continuing to run away from their obligations and responsibilities to the South. As a result there are more inequalities today that are suspended in outdated agreements, which promote unsustainable practices that developing countries are obliged to follow.
Dr. Palitha Kohona from the Sri Lanka Permanent Mission to the UN in New York agrees that summits are important in getting people to talk about issues but that time should not be wasted trying to define specifically what green economy means. Sustainable Development is a term he believes we should continue to work with as it embodies the idea of the carrying capacity of our planet while preserving enough resources for future generations. Providing a very raw depiction of the priorities that plague the South, Kohona says the struggles that exist for those in the South are of basic survival and immediate necessity. For those in developing countries, securing food and shelter are of primary concern and to bombard them with the pressure to green their economic and social activities is one which cannot be realistically addressed until poverty for them has been eradicated. He emphasizes our need to look at the green economy in this context and not to forget that over one billion go to bed hungry every night. This needs to be remedied before those who live in poverty can begin to focus on clean air and water. The North can think about the issues of conserving energy and water because they have the luxury of having reliable sources and are using them in its excess.
New Green Trade Battle
So are these two different concepts? While greening the economy is a process that drives the worlds unsustainable consumption, production and trading process to be corrected, the object of creating a green economy appears to be focused on creating new market opportunities in the realization of the down turn of the market based economy. Greening the existing industrial production system will not help green the economy. It will not take us towards a carbon neutral society and drive us away from the wasteful lifestyles. A new green world order has to be more authentic than making mountains of the green labeling and green procurement business. Such a new world order will have to make sufficiency based considerations more pertinent. Sufficiency can firstly reduce greed and want for over- consumption through a state of adequacy and contentment. It can also innovate on indigenous knowledge systems to produce without waste, more efficiently, become more self-reliant, and less dependent on external resources.
Are we entering into a new battle between North and South or developed and developing countries? Are we entering into a new phase of a global trading regime that favours the rich and powerful? And are we using the concepts of environmentalism to green wash the black industrial economies? And are we heading towards new conflicts and wars on earth?
Main Issues and Proposals for the Rio+20 Summit
Therefore, I raise the following questions from the organizers of the UNCSD Rio+20 Summit. (a) Do we need more convincing to eradicate poverty as a prerequisite to achieve sustainable development? (b) The so called Marrakech process during the past 8 years has failed to consult nations and formulate a 10YFP. What do we need? Voluntary commitments or binding agreements to regulate unsustainable consumption and production? (c) Can we bring to focus the Climate Change challenge into the Rio+20 processes? What is the so called post Kyoto challenge in the “Green Economy”?
I have proposed three key international commitments to draw focus on at the Rio+20 UNCSD in 2012 to enable sustainable development on earth.
Proposal 01: Poverty Eradication
The first proposal is on poverty eradication. While discussing sustainability for the past four decades, the world has failed in eradication hunger and poverty on earth. Currently half of the world humanity are under poverty and are desperately struggling to survive on a daily basis. Poverty is a result of a hypocritical global governance system. This is a system that has promoted unsustainable production regimes and over-consuming societies to grow further; a system that rewards exploitation by a few and obstructs access to resources by the majority; a system where the unconcerned and non-compassionate continue to decide the destinies of humanity. If any hope for sustainability is to be drawn in the development processes in the developing countries where the poor reside, poverty needs to be eradicated. Development that cannot ensure the wellbeing of all citizens does not have the capability to sustain itself. That is where the growth based economic model has failed. While growth has created increased gaps between the rich and poor, the lack of intent to distribute the wealth has clearly blocked the progress of development in wellbeing and prosperity. Northern governments need to recognize that climate change and the emergence of the new economic powers may well shift the zones of suffering in the world. The emerging consumer classes in the South have already started to enjoy the power over their own resources, technological advancement, market dominance and power in global governance. An emerging world order suggests that the resources for over consumption in the developed nations are becoming harder to come by the day and the Rio+20 process should take an early note to address all kinds of poverty on earth.
Proposal 02: Sustainable Consumption and Production
The second proposal is on sustainable consumption and production. The World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, or Rio+10, clearly declared that one of the greatest barriers for sustainable development on earth has been the unsustainable consumption and production patterns and that we should be regulating such activities. While the UNEP lead Marrakech Process for a 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production which is expected to commence in the year 2012 has failed for the past eight years to deliver a credible plan, and the Rio+20 fails to recognize such a programme officially in its agenda that at the same time. At this stage a weak programme that caters to the political needs of a European dominated agenda is clearly not what the Rio+20 needs to focus on but to address the Rio+10 call at the Johannesburg WSSD Summit for means to regulate unsustainable production and consumption patterns. The prevailing unsustainable consumption and production system is the largest contributory factor to both climate change and poverty on earth and thus requires greater emphasis and focus at the levels of international regulation. If anthropogenic climate change is to be controlled, then developing a regulatory framework for sustainable consumption and production must be a priority as well. In very simple terms, unsustainable consumption and production needs to be regulated on earth parallel to emission cuts as a solution to both problems of climate change and poverty. This may not be the easiest to achieve, but if the UN Rio+20 Summit plans to follow-up on the Rio and Rio+10 commitments, it will then have to stop playing the hide and seek game that the so called Marrakech Process has been playing to formulate a 10 year frame work of programmes. The true value of the other agenda item for Rio+20 as in Sustainable Development Governance would mean that the new institutional mechanisms will be more forthright and fair in its approach towards designing and implementing sustainable development programmes for its member nations.
Proposal 03: Climate Sustainability
The third proposal is on climate sustainability. The continued failure by the UNFCCC lead climate negotiations to derive a global agreement is driving the world towards a climate catastrophe of magnitude that threatens the mere existence of humans on earth. Climate change is no longer a possibility but a larger reality that has already commenced its ascending. Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, vice-chair of the Nobel Prize-winning fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, points out that the world can be saved from the dangers posed by climate change by sustainable consumers and producers. “We need to look at finding integrated solutions for multiple global problems rather than trying to solve these problems separately”, and he warns that climate change is a threat amplifier for the growing risk of financial-economic crises, persistent poverty and growing inequity, shortages of energy, water and food, and other extreme events. While the Kyoto Protocol is said to be expiring in 2012 and the world is looking for a new binding agreement in 2012, the Rio+20 UNCSD Summit once again fails to include it in its agenda. Sadly, the Climate Change Convention that was signed at the first Earth Summit in 1992 has become out of reach of the sustainable development programme and has become another separate programme in the UN system.
Riding on a Dismantled Train to Sustainability: A Formula for Failure
In my book “It has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY” I wrote that the UN process that drives the world towards sustainability is like a ride on a dismantled train. The train to sustainable development had been dismantled since the first Earth Summit in 1992 and different compartments were placed on different tracks; climate change, biodiversity conservation, poverty eradication, economic prosperity, etc. Since then many of us continued to demand that this train needs to be assembled together and placed on the correct track, and that we should proceed towards sustainability through a clear path to avoid being stranded. Today, we are dangerously stranded with possibilities of no return. Yet the UN system continues to ignore negotiating these interlinked issues in a holistic approach and continues to divide and rule.
The Rio+20 UNCSD Summit already demonstrates another formula for failure. The hunger for dominance on earth by the different regions and countries, clearly to protect the business and trading interest of the multinational corporations that keeps the rich richer and poor poorer still is the greatest debate inside the UN rooms where negotiations take place. Therefore, another UN summit has brought us once again on to a football field where the ball will be passed from one end to the other till the game results in a stalemate; a no result that will prolong the quest for sustainability on earth and increase the threat of climate change. So, to keep the sustainable development agenda alive, we may have to organize Rio+30, Rio+40 and Rio+50 summits and by time the world will be in much desperation than today.
Optimistic Conclusions
I still would like to see more optimism in a Rio+20 Summit. A representative from a USA based NGO stated at a International Advisory Board meeting of the Stakeholder Forum for Rio+20 that this is the last chance to save the Earth. Well, I had to remind him that the same words were said by Mr. Maurice Strong as the Secretary General of the first Rio Earth Summit in 1992; but this is not the case. I believe that Rio+20 Earth Summit is the best chance rather than the last chance to get the sustainable development process moving proactively on earth because we no longer need to sell the concept. The concept of sustainable development is already sold and appreciated by all including the rich industrialized nations, the poor developing nations, the big and small business and industries and people across the world. But, Rio+20 now will have to target finalizing the agreed pathways and commitments.
In doing this the United Nations will have to draw in the voices, opinions, minds and aspirations of all people on earth. Dr. Rubens Harry Born of Vitae Civilis from Brazil reminds us that often humans use different words to express the same feeling or action. What is most important is not that we agree to the term itself but that there is action to fulfill the aims this word is supposed to promote. When we look to 2012 and Rio+20 we need to start implementing a much more formal and bureaucratic process, which is bottom up participatory. Further, the representation of the current nine major groups is not enough to speak of the world’s diverse people. At Rio+20 Born argues that the whole world should have access to what takes place. With our advances in information communication technologies there is no reason that anyone should be excluded. It is now possible that those whose voices are most critical, but do not have the funding support to get there, can now be given the connection to be seen and heard in the most critical conversations that will take place this century.
Historically human societies have collapsed when the greedy use of resources exceeds the carrying capacity of the earth. The future threatens us with great insecurities, but humans also have demonstrated resilience and endurance to rise above the challenge when survival is at stake. The Rio+20 Summit needs to be viewed in both such desperation and opportunities. However, planning cannot wait till 2012 and needs to commence now and encompass the needs of all human groups in a way that will create a sustainable and enjoyable future for everyone. For this mindfulness needs to prevail and the Rio+20 Summit will create the required impetus for a more conscious process of living and behaving on earth.
(Uchita de Zoysa is the author of ‘It has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY’ and convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM, chairman of Global Sustainability Solutions and Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development. He was a Steering Committee Member of the Global NGO Forum at the first Earth Summit in 1992 and is International Advisory Board Member of the Stakeholder Forum for Rio+20. Please send your comments to [email protected])
‘Sustainable Development’ is one of the most defined, interpreted and misinterpreted words on earth. After two decades since the Brundtland Commission Report on ‘Our Common Future’ published in 1987 famous definition of sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’, the world still appears to be unsatisfied. To most of us in the South sustainable development would mean ‘achieving an enduring prosperity, wellbeing and happiness for all where sustainable consumption and production opportunities are ensured in an equitable world that at the same time keeps the ecosystem in a healthy balance’. Yet, many Northern Governments, Multinational Corporations and the United Nations Bureaucracy are not satisfied with the plans already made way back in 1992 when the first ever Earth Summit was held in Rio de Janeiro to achieve such world order.
The 1992 Earth Summit adopted Agenda 21, a comprehensive global plan of action for sustainable development. A decade later, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) was adopted highlighting concrete steps for better implementation of Agenda 21. However, the progress has been slow in achieving these internationally agreed goals and sustainable development has now become a greater challenge. Therefore another Earth Summit to deliberate on sustainable development will be convened in the year 2012 in the same city of Rio de Janeiro.
Do We Need Another Summit?
Why do we need another earth summit? According to Mr. Felix Dodds of the Stakeholder Forum in UK, a UN summit is the best way to draw global attention towards sustainable development. If not the subject continues to be conveniently neglected by policy makers and governments and does not get media attention to enable the sustainability agenda. The main strategist behind getting the UN to declare the Rio+20 Summit, Dodds draws an interesting point about keeping the sustainable development agenda alive. He believes this is not the end all be all of accomplishing the challenges ahead but that it will play a critical role in what we can or cannot succeed in doing. The conversation surrounding transforming our economy should focus on seeing a world that is about fairness, equity and where everyone benefits from the planet, not just a few as our current system allows. In the past 20 years since the Earth Summit in Rio Dodds believes we have lost the plot and emphasizes that more people now have less than two decades ago. As the next 20 years unravel, if we do not commit to remedying the current state of the world immediately, the years to follow will see insecurity of water, food, energy and health worldwide. Dodds calls the world to step up in this small window of opportunity that is presented to us to work together and use Rio +20 as the final piece to bring the family back together for a sustainable and secure future.
The First Preparatory Meeting for UNCSD
The first preparatory committee (PrepCom-1) of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) more popularly known as ‘Rio+20 Summit’ was held in May 2010 in New York at the headquarters of the organization. A rather poorly informed and rather quietly organized event had already attempted to finalise a programme for the proposed 2012 Earth Summit. The organizers appear to be in hurry to conclude the outcome rather early without any sense of responsibility towards national governments and its people and stakeholder groups. They framework of the summit also has been decided with four agenda items; Review of Commitments, Emerging Issues, Green Economy in the context of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development, and Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development.
Why is the UN together with some countries in a mighty hurry to frame another Earth Summit agenda? What troubled the minds of many at the PrepCom-1 was the dominant agenda item called ‘The Green Economy’. While the 2012 Earth Summit is to focus on a Green Economy, everybody including the top UN officials managing this process kept asking “what is a green economy?” While many different definitions and explanations were offered by various interest groups, the closest that the official process could arrive at to justify the agenda item was to compromise on wording that read as “Green Economy in the context of Poverty Eradication and Sustainable Development”.
The Report of the Secretary General of the Rio+20 Summit released during the PrepCom-1 of the UNCSD says, “ the green economy approach is an attempt to unite under one banner a broad suite of economic instruments relevant to sustainable development”. This is distracting us away from the core strategies of sustainable development as set out in the agenda 21. Everyone is saying we do not still know what a Green Economy means. Why then are we not concentrating on what we know after 20 years of sustainable development discussions and negotiations? All human activities and human societies are not governed by the economy whether it is black or green. German social scientist Wolfgang Sachs in 1992 wrote, "In societies that are not built on the compulsion to amass material wealth, economic activity is not geared to slick zippy output. The economy is closely bound up with life, but it does not stamp its rule and rhythms on the rest of society. Only in the West does the economy dictate the drama and everyone's role in it.”
After 18 years since the first Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, how did we manage to come to a position that we define Sustainable Development under the purview of a Green Economy? Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Greening the economy was supposed to be a strategic transition path towards achieving sustainable development. Poverty eradication too was another strategic pathway. Now the UN once again is changing the direction of the global evolution of the entire sustainable development policy focus and turning it upside down.
Greening the Economy vs. Green Economy
But now that a summit is to take place, should the focus change from sustainable development towards a green economy? United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) backed by some Western European countries appear to be the key proponents advocating a green economy and making a sustainable development summit into a green economy summit.
The Green Economy Initiative of UNEP was launched in 2008 as a response to the economic down turn and is designed to assist governments in “greening” their economies by reshaping and refocusing policies, investments and spending towards a range of sectors, such as clean technologies, renewable energies, water services, green transportation, waste management, green buildings and sustainable agriculture and forests. UNEP says today we need vision, urgent action and strong political engagement to direct financial flows and manage markets to deal with the even greater global challenges of our time. These range from climate change; poverty; job creation for the 1.3 billion people under or unemployed and accelerating natural resource scarcity to the need to fuel and to feed six billion, rising to nine billion people by 2050. A new Green Deal, generating businesses in renewable energies; clean tech ventures, sustainable agriculture, conservation and the intelligent management of the planet's ecosystems and nature-based infrastructure is already underway. Accelerating this transition is at the core of the Green Economy initiative and the best bet for global, sustainable wealth and employment generation for 1.3 billion poor people.
It is rather interesting to note the comment made by the Co-Chair of UNEP Finance Initiative, Ms, Barbara Krumsiek, who is also the CEO of the Washington D.C. headquartered Calvert Group Ltd just prior to the PrepCom-1 of UNCSD. She says, "As the economy and the financial sector begin to recover, we have both an opportunity and obligation to build sustainability into the way global financial companies do business. The challenges finance and investment face on the road to the Rio+20 Summit are considerable. It is a critical time to work for progress and develop the means to deal with the next crisis - which may very well be a natural resources crisis".
While the Business and Industry sector is planning to thrive on the opportunities at Rio+20 by pushing for a green economy, many other stakeholder groups were more pessimistic. Ms. Leida Rijnhout of the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED) in Belgium brings to attention the wording of green economy and claims that it is the wrong choice of words to be used. Sustainable Development, which was a term that has taken shape and clear understanding these past 20 years is one in which we should continue to commit to. There is a need to re-assess our economy and reshape it in a way that is sustainable and something closer to a green and fair economy. Rijnhout strengthens this point by pointing to the need for the new economy to be based on equity and real values that fit with the carrying capacity of our planet and social needs. The goal she leaves us with leading up to Rio+20 should not be about greening our greed but about expanding our thinking to adopting sustainable lifestyles respectful and responsible towards global equality.
Representing the Asian Indigenous Women’s Network, Vicky Tauli Corpuz from the Philippines also believes that the green economy concept is distorting what we have achieved with the concept of sustainable development. The economic model that has collapsed and we are trying to resuscitate it based on concepts that will inevitably result in our environmental collapse. We are talking about growth, but growth in the current sense is what Indigenous Peoples see as the source of the environmental problems we are facing. The developed nations encourage the developing nations to create products that we deem useless in just a matter of months. As a result those in developing nations, which are the most dependent on natural resources for survival are the ones suffering. If we continue to believe this as the process of growth, Corpus argues, we will just continue to go down in the natural resources that support our planet. She believes we need a radical restructuring of the entire economic system underpinned by the concept of sustainable development, but that also ensures the support of human rights and the respect of mother earth.
Another veteran from the first Rio Summit, Ms. Chee Yoke-Ling of the Third World Network (TWN) in Malaysia clearly explains that the call since Rio 1992 Earth Summit was on greening the economy rather than making an all new green economy. The focus needs to be on working towards a new global economic system, one in which the ideas of a green economy are at the centre. Yoke-ling places emphasis on the need for the global systems to be collaboratively repaired, regulated and combined with a recommitment to the promises made in Rio 18 years ago. She stress how important it is to get governments moving as there is currently a strong political will to not go sustainable. She believes it is not just about Rio but also about all of the similar bodies and agreements of the United Nations that promote and work to achieve sustainability. There has not necessarily been a deficit to devise structures based on sustainable development but that the failure has come in the implementation of their mandates. Rich countries are continuing to run away from their obligations and responsibilities to the South. As a result there are more inequalities today that are suspended in outdated agreements, which promote unsustainable practices that developing countries are obliged to follow.
Dr. Palitha Kohona from the Sri Lanka Permanent Mission to the UN in New York agrees that summits are important in getting people to talk about issues but that time should not be wasted trying to define specifically what green economy means. Sustainable Development is a term he believes we should continue to work with as it embodies the idea of the carrying capacity of our planet while preserving enough resources for future generations. Providing a very raw depiction of the priorities that plague the South, Kohona says the struggles that exist for those in the South are of basic survival and immediate necessity. For those in developing countries, securing food and shelter are of primary concern and to bombard them with the pressure to green their economic and social activities is one which cannot be realistically addressed until poverty for them has been eradicated. He emphasizes our need to look at the green economy in this context and not to forget that over one billion go to bed hungry every night. This needs to be remedied before those who live in poverty can begin to focus on clean air and water. The North can think about the issues of conserving energy and water because they have the luxury of having reliable sources and are using them in its excess.
New Green Trade Battle
So are these two different concepts? While greening the economy is a process that drives the worlds unsustainable consumption, production and trading process to be corrected, the object of creating a green economy appears to be focused on creating new market opportunities in the realization of the down turn of the market based economy. Greening the existing industrial production system will not help green the economy. It will not take us towards a carbon neutral society and drive us away from the wasteful lifestyles. A new green world order has to be more authentic than making mountains of the green labeling and green procurement business. Such a new world order will have to make sufficiency based considerations more pertinent. Sufficiency can firstly reduce greed and want for over- consumption through a state of adequacy and contentment. It can also innovate on indigenous knowledge systems to produce without waste, more efficiently, become more self-reliant, and less dependent on external resources.
Are we entering into a new battle between North and South or developed and developing countries? Are we entering into a new phase of a global trading regime that favours the rich and powerful? And are we using the concepts of environmentalism to green wash the black industrial economies? And are we heading towards new conflicts and wars on earth?
Main Issues and Proposals for the Rio+20 Summit
Therefore, I raise the following questions from the organizers of the UNCSD Rio+20 Summit. (a) Do we need more convincing to eradicate poverty as a prerequisite to achieve sustainable development? (b) The so called Marrakech process during the past 8 years has failed to consult nations and formulate a 10YFP. What do we need? Voluntary commitments or binding agreements to regulate unsustainable consumption and production? (c) Can we bring to focus the Climate Change challenge into the Rio+20 processes? What is the so called post Kyoto challenge in the “Green Economy”?
I have proposed three key international commitments to draw focus on at the Rio+20 UNCSD in 2012 to enable sustainable development on earth.
Proposal 01: Poverty Eradication
The first proposal is on poverty eradication. While discussing sustainability for the past four decades, the world has failed in eradication hunger and poverty on earth. Currently half of the world humanity are under poverty and are desperately struggling to survive on a daily basis. Poverty is a result of a hypocritical global governance system. This is a system that has promoted unsustainable production regimes and over-consuming societies to grow further; a system that rewards exploitation by a few and obstructs access to resources by the majority; a system where the unconcerned and non-compassionate continue to decide the destinies of humanity. If any hope for sustainability is to be drawn in the development processes in the developing countries where the poor reside, poverty needs to be eradicated. Development that cannot ensure the wellbeing of all citizens does not have the capability to sustain itself. That is where the growth based economic model has failed. While growth has created increased gaps between the rich and poor, the lack of intent to distribute the wealth has clearly blocked the progress of development in wellbeing and prosperity. Northern governments need to recognize that climate change and the emergence of the new economic powers may well shift the zones of suffering in the world. The emerging consumer classes in the South have already started to enjoy the power over their own resources, technological advancement, market dominance and power in global governance. An emerging world order suggests that the resources for over consumption in the developed nations are becoming harder to come by the day and the Rio+20 process should take an early note to address all kinds of poverty on earth.
Proposal 02: Sustainable Consumption and Production
The second proposal is on sustainable consumption and production. The World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, or Rio+10, clearly declared that one of the greatest barriers for sustainable development on earth has been the unsustainable consumption and production patterns and that we should be regulating such activities. While the UNEP lead Marrakech Process for a 10 Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production which is expected to commence in the year 2012 has failed for the past eight years to deliver a credible plan, and the Rio+20 fails to recognize such a programme officially in its agenda that at the same time. At this stage a weak programme that caters to the political needs of a European dominated agenda is clearly not what the Rio+20 needs to focus on but to address the Rio+10 call at the Johannesburg WSSD Summit for means to regulate unsustainable production and consumption patterns. The prevailing unsustainable consumption and production system is the largest contributory factor to both climate change and poverty on earth and thus requires greater emphasis and focus at the levels of international regulation. If anthropogenic climate change is to be controlled, then developing a regulatory framework for sustainable consumption and production must be a priority as well. In very simple terms, unsustainable consumption and production needs to be regulated on earth parallel to emission cuts as a solution to both problems of climate change and poverty. This may not be the easiest to achieve, but if the UN Rio+20 Summit plans to follow-up on the Rio and Rio+10 commitments, it will then have to stop playing the hide and seek game that the so called Marrakech Process has been playing to formulate a 10 year frame work of programmes. The true value of the other agenda item for Rio+20 as in Sustainable Development Governance would mean that the new institutional mechanisms will be more forthright and fair in its approach towards designing and implementing sustainable development programmes for its member nations.
Proposal 03: Climate Sustainability
The third proposal is on climate sustainability. The continued failure by the UNFCCC lead climate negotiations to derive a global agreement is driving the world towards a climate catastrophe of magnitude that threatens the mere existence of humans on earth. Climate change is no longer a possibility but a larger reality that has already commenced its ascending. Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, vice-chair of the Nobel Prize-winning fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, points out that the world can be saved from the dangers posed by climate change by sustainable consumers and producers. “We need to look at finding integrated solutions for multiple global problems rather than trying to solve these problems separately”, and he warns that climate change is a threat amplifier for the growing risk of financial-economic crises, persistent poverty and growing inequity, shortages of energy, water and food, and other extreme events. While the Kyoto Protocol is said to be expiring in 2012 and the world is looking for a new binding agreement in 2012, the Rio+20 UNCSD Summit once again fails to include it in its agenda. Sadly, the Climate Change Convention that was signed at the first Earth Summit in 1992 has become out of reach of the sustainable development programme and has become another separate programme in the UN system.
Riding on a Dismantled Train to Sustainability: A Formula for Failure
In my book “It has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY” I wrote that the UN process that drives the world towards sustainability is like a ride on a dismantled train. The train to sustainable development had been dismantled since the first Earth Summit in 1992 and different compartments were placed on different tracks; climate change, biodiversity conservation, poverty eradication, economic prosperity, etc. Since then many of us continued to demand that this train needs to be assembled together and placed on the correct track, and that we should proceed towards sustainability through a clear path to avoid being stranded. Today, we are dangerously stranded with possibilities of no return. Yet the UN system continues to ignore negotiating these interlinked issues in a holistic approach and continues to divide and rule.
The Rio+20 UNCSD Summit already demonstrates another formula for failure. The hunger for dominance on earth by the different regions and countries, clearly to protect the business and trading interest of the multinational corporations that keeps the rich richer and poor poorer still is the greatest debate inside the UN rooms where negotiations take place. Therefore, another UN summit has brought us once again on to a football field where the ball will be passed from one end to the other till the game results in a stalemate; a no result that will prolong the quest for sustainability on earth and increase the threat of climate change. So, to keep the sustainable development agenda alive, we may have to organize Rio+30, Rio+40 and Rio+50 summits and by time the world will be in much desperation than today.
Optimistic Conclusions
I still would like to see more optimism in a Rio+20 Summit. A representative from a USA based NGO stated at a International Advisory Board meeting of the Stakeholder Forum for Rio+20 that this is the last chance to save the Earth. Well, I had to remind him that the same words were said by Mr. Maurice Strong as the Secretary General of the first Rio Earth Summit in 1992; but this is not the case. I believe that Rio+20 Earth Summit is the best chance rather than the last chance to get the sustainable development process moving proactively on earth because we no longer need to sell the concept. The concept of sustainable development is already sold and appreciated by all including the rich industrialized nations, the poor developing nations, the big and small business and industries and people across the world. But, Rio+20 now will have to target finalizing the agreed pathways and commitments.
In doing this the United Nations will have to draw in the voices, opinions, minds and aspirations of all people on earth. Dr. Rubens Harry Born of Vitae Civilis from Brazil reminds us that often humans use different words to express the same feeling or action. What is most important is not that we agree to the term itself but that there is action to fulfill the aims this word is supposed to promote. When we look to 2012 and Rio+20 we need to start implementing a much more formal and bureaucratic process, which is bottom up participatory. Further, the representation of the current nine major groups is not enough to speak of the world’s diverse people. At Rio+20 Born argues that the whole world should have access to what takes place. With our advances in information communication technologies there is no reason that anyone should be excluded. It is now possible that those whose voices are most critical, but do not have the funding support to get there, can now be given the connection to be seen and heard in the most critical conversations that will take place this century.
Historically human societies have collapsed when the greedy use of resources exceeds the carrying capacity of the earth. The future threatens us with great insecurities, but humans also have demonstrated resilience and endurance to rise above the challenge when survival is at stake. The Rio+20 Summit needs to be viewed in both such desperation and opportunities. However, planning cannot wait till 2012 and needs to commence now and encompass the needs of all human groups in a way that will create a sustainable and enjoyable future for everyone. For this mindfulness needs to prevail and the Rio+20 Summit will create the required impetus for a more conscious process of living and behaving on earth.
(Uchita de Zoysa is the author of ‘It has to be CLIMATE SUSTAINABILITY’ and convener of the Climate Sustainability PLATFORM, chairman of Global Sustainability Solutions and Executive Director of the Centre for Environment and Development. He was a Steering Committee Member of the Global NGO Forum at the first Earth Summit in 1992 and is International Advisory Board Member of the Stakeholder Forum for Rio+20. Please send your comments to [email protected])