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JAN-GUSTAV STRANDENAES: ” FOR A BETTER CENTURY
”DO ALL ROADS LEAD TO RIO?”
MAY, 2011 CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL, GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HONG KONG,
With Rio plus 20
Our defining area
Do we have a plan, do we understand?
The relationship between ideas, knowledge and action is a complex one
First a quote from the UN“In Larger Freedom”
“We fundamentally depend on natural systems and resources for our existence and development. Our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated. (§57”)
Then a quote from a great African
“Good governance at the local, national and international levels is perhaps the single most important factor in promoting development and advancing the cause of peace”, Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN
It has indeed been said before, many times over, and we might have been better off today had we listened
We are discussing nothing new -
Nothing new
Rachel Carson said it in 1960 Barry Commoner said it in 1970 UNEP, Stockholm, said it in 1972 UNCED, Agenda 21, Rio, said it in
1992 The UN millennium ecosystems
report said it in 2000 WSSD, Johannesburg, said it in 2002
Our time is now
What is different now, is that we have a global audience willing to listen to environmental issues
... and we can use them to our advantage, if we engage
DECISIONS are MADE
What is missing in decisions?
We have facts and we need action!
We have the resources and money
We are willing to act; but what is it we are willing to do?
And what are the consequences of our actions?
This has been missing….
It is a question of political will, and doing the right thing for all people.
And the choices we are about to make, may take us forward in a right or wrong direction.
And what is our attitude and approach? Are we
Solution oriented? Well-fare oriented? Altruistic and sharing? Optimistic?
The UN decided that
On 24th December 2009 the UN General Assembly adopted a Resolution (A/RES/64/236) agreeing to hold the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in 2012 - also referred to as 'Rio+20' or 'Rio 20'.
- for the UN and for us
THE THEMES now and in Rio -
The UN Conference on Sustainable Development (2012) Has two foci and
Three objectives
The three objectives are
1. secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development,
2. assessing the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major SD
3 - addressing new and emerging challenges;
The focus of the Conference, 2012 will include
a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication;
the institutional framework for sustainable development;
And for the record
The major groups and civil society have been given a role in the process by being referred to in 8 of the 29 paragraphs of the GA resolution calling for the UN CSD in Rio in 2012
At all levels of the process, nationally regionally and globally including at the conference
The 9 major groups are
Women Children and youth Indigenous
Peoples Farmers NGOs, non
governmental organisations
Trade unions Local
authorities Science and
technology Business and
industry
Does the UN concern us?
Now what?
What about the UN?
What has the UN done for us, and how does the work it is carrying out relate to what we are doing?
Does the UN offer us
An obvious connection?
A necessary connection?
A useful connection?
..or does it not concern us?
How do we understand the UN?
Tasks of the UN - a major function
One of the major functions of the UN is global standard setting and developing norms, rules, procedures and conventions that govern the global community
Tasks of the UN – a major dilemma
One of the major dilemmas of the UN is the obvious need to implement the standards and to create the political will globally to support and abide by these standards
Understanding the UN
However, the impression is often that the ‘market’ considers UN agreements as obstacles, tools that hinder the free will and spirit of creative market forces.
Understanding the UN
Yet most people outside the market, consider these treaties as tools that help protect and safeguard something that needs to be protected.
…does it concern us?
And what about sustainable development?
Sustainable development
Concepts often remain concepts in search of applications….
Does Sustainable Development have an application?
According to the UN, sustainable development rests on three pillars:
Social Economic Environmental
Back to Rio plus 20
What is in the resolution about the un summit in 2012, an application for sustainability?
What is in the UN resolution?
Themes are defined, not content The conference at the highest
political level, not yet a summit, but perhaps…?
Operationalize the three elements in sustainable development, central to the UN-track
What is in the UN resolution?
Emphasise the importance of CSD(Commission on Sustainable Development)
Emphasise the importance of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
Emphasise the importance of SCP(Sustainable Consumption and Production)
What is in the UN resolution?
That civil society, the Major Groups shall participate in all meetings and at all levels of the preparatory process including the conference itself, and at all geographical levels, nationally, regionally and globally
Any visible problems?
Process lacks dynamics Developed countries using brakes
instead of accelerators and are not prioritising sustainable development
Developed countries upgrading other processes, than the UN, (Davos, G-8 etc)
Any visible problems?
The process working in the shadow of a number of UN fiasco conferences and processes
The process seem to lack visions of how the world might look like in a sustainable way in 2030
Process challenges
Few countries have developed basic positions, EU only this summer
Compared to Rio in 1992, there is little time for the preparatory work
Unclear roles between various units of the UN,
Lack of resources from donors and from financial institutions
What’s missing in the resolution?
There is no definition of or direction for the discussion concerning the Green Economy concept
Does not indicate in any way how to strengthen the institutional architecture
What’s missing in the resolution?
Does not deal with or reflect the changing political realities in the world today
Does not deal with UNEP at all
What’s positively new? G-77 is to a large extent
driving the process Civil society/ major groups
have been given an active role
What’s positively new? The US has a government from
the Democratic party The themes are looking for
content, and proposals are actively sought and are positively welcome
Let’s contextualise our world
Do we really understand our world today?
Has anything really happened over the last 20 to 30 years?
How do we understand our world?
Our world is changing, from a bi-polar world in the 1970s to a multi-polar world today, from a North South divide to where many nations from earlier developing regions are active
and what will the world in 2030 look like?
Population perspectives
1970 – population increase, 2.3 %/ annum
2010 –population increase 1.1% annum
Fertility rates are falling everywhere
1970: estimates at stabilising level, end of 21st century at 20 billion
2010: estimates at stabilising level, end of 21st century at >9 billion
Food availability and people (2009-10)
Total food production: 8 616 000 000 million metric tonnes - 8,6 billion metric tonnes of food Global population (ca) 6 700 000 000
million individuals – or 6,7 billion people on earth
Food per capita/annum: 1 286 kilo
Food per cap/day:
3.5 kilo
Food availability
At 10 billion people at the end of the century (estimated stability), and at no increase in food production:
816 kilo food per year and person
...or 2,5 kilo of food per person and day or
.. 800 grams per meal per person.
How do we understand our world?
Are the developing nations the same today as they were in the 1970s?
Political blocks are changing, old ones are fragmenting
How do we understand our world?
Is the UN is given less priority? Is Davos is more important than
Geneva, New York and Nairobi Is the financial crisis used as an
excuse for not giving priority to sustainable development
Double talk among nations The same governments
criticising the UN, undermines it by withdrawing or reducing their support, politically and economically
Not so when the bank crisis emerged
A changed world
The bi-polar (North South) world is on the wane, and a multi-polar world has emerged: north is no longer dominating the global scene and several former developing countries are global players. The classic period of aid is coming to an end.
Still, large inequalities remain, poverty is a dominating feature in many countries and has become global, large segments of population are marginalised; environmental issues have become problematic and environmental stability is threatened in many places often aggravating poverty.
Are we outdated?
Is our understanding of the world today, its problems and solutions in reality based on how we saw the world as it was back in the 1970s and we thought all what we did then, actually worked? Are we still using the same mechanisms?
first, green economy
The themes of the resolution
The borders within which any economy must exist and function are defined
The Rio decisions
Can reform the world and how we think
Reform means strengthen, not reduce
UNEP identifies a world in need of restoration
Biodiversity is the basis of ecosystem health and of the provision of ecosystem services
Restoring a damaged ecosystem is a difficult and complex task, and one about which we still have much to learn
Boundaries for the economy Efforts to designate
‘planetary boundaries’, which are intended to define a ‘safe operating space’ for humanity with respect to Earth systems, have begun.
The nine planetary boundaries
climate change rate (passed) biodiversity loss (terrestrial and
marine) (passed) interference with the nitrogen
and phosphorous cycles (passed) stratospheric ozone depletion
The nine planetary boundaries
ocean acidification global freshwater use change in land use chemical pollution atmospheric aerosol loading
Green Economy- four ways? Reduce, reuse and recycle, including
making all production green, may be the panacea – a market liberalistic view. Worst case: green-washing and greening greed
De-growth or a critical approach to the system of economy, based on what is know as strong sustainability
Green Economy- four ways? Distributive growth, tries to look
at SCP in a ’frugal’ way Global transition – incremental
change with strengthening key institutions
Green economy
If we do not think
differently this time, we would just be
greening the greed.
Green economy challenges The Earth Integrity Principle The Planetary Boundaries Principle The Dignity Principle The Justice Principle The Precautionary Principle The Resilience Principle The Governance Principle The Beyond-GDP Principle
The themes of the resolution
Institutional sustainable development governance
GOVERNANCE BEYOND GOVERNMENT
Governance is overwhelmingly associated with the work of governments. Yet during the last two decades, the governmental mode of governance has been complimented by modes of governance in which non-governmental organizations and the private sector are key partners.
GOVERNANCE BEYOND GOVERNMENT
This trend is illustrated by the sustained growth of private sector standards such as certification, and of public-private partnerships, at the local to the global level.
Governance
The term governance refers to the process or method by which society is governed, or the ‘condition of ordered rule’.
Good governance at a minimum
Participation Accountability Transparency
Implementation
Institutional architecture Need to further develop and
strengthen functions and systems within the UN and at national level on sustainable development
Make sure that environmental issues are handled by knowledgeable elements of the UN, and allow the environmental institutions a stronger political authority, decision power over financial institutions, power of implementation etc.
Emerging issues
The themes of the resolution
Identify and deal with emerging issues Food security Climate
security Energy security Water security Ecosystems
security Other issues
Design and develop a system which can handle emerging issues and which can actually strengthen the merging issues
And what about security? ‘Moreover, what we may be
witnessing, as security increasingly dominates the agenda, is the end of politics as a forum for open debate, which is the crucible in which democracy flourishes.”
Professor Frederick Powell of the Irish University in Cork, Ireland
Identify and deal with emerging issues
Proposal to develop a basis for three new frameworks conventions at Rio plus 20
1 - Principle 10 and access to information, participation and justice;
Identify and deal with emerging issues
2 - Corporate Social Responsibility, CSR, based on the ISO 26 000 outcome (Consumer International?)
3 - Develop the precautionary principle to a framework convention to include issues on emerging technologies, bio-engineering and nano-technology
Renewed political commitment
Develop a new and visionary document on how the world should look like in 2030 complete with concepts visions, values, all elements that should be brought into the expressed political commitments for sustainable development
A few concluding thoughts
And finally
We are in a quandary:
We need quick actions but will see no quick results.
We need quick capital and massive finance to pay for these actions, with no promise of quick and massive returns.
We need simple understanding to complex problems.
We need commitments to last for 30 years and more, but our fear and impatience, do not speak of maintaining a high level of commitments for as long as it takes.
Decisions may go wrong, we need informed people
To make the right choices, and have these choices supported by people, and have the choices improve the lives of everybody, we need to base our choices on a number of well established values that are intrinsically found in democracy.
Democratic values
Among these values are two pillars: one is about the individual person
being able to make an informed choice.
The other is that the individual person will be able to understand the consequences of the informed choice.
How to make complex choices?
In a small society In a big, complex society In a technological society In a complex and technologically
based and technologically oriented society
In a global society In a fast moving society?
Choices made in a complex and interdependent society:
Are they so difficult to understand that we will inevitably come to rely on:
elites? experts? control systems? In short will we be subject to a
dictatorship of circumstances?
Our opportunities, unused The intergovernmental system in
general and the UN in particular offer unprecedented opportunities for people to participate actively in these processes and influence their own fate at home.
Road-map to Rio
And from now until first of November, input to the negotiating document from civil society
Has to be relevant to the agenda points
Can be developed nationally and globally
The world according to
A philosopher....
The great enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant gave us all almost 250 years ago gave all a clarion call to follow:
“Sapere aude –
Have courage to use your own
understanding”
Shakespeare simply said
Action is eloquence
A word from a confused optimist, who said
…I love humanity, it’s people I cannot stand
…and we will simply say
Yes, we can, too.. build a better century than the
one we just left behind
