Rio+20: Empty Words from Environmental Summit?

Diplomats at the UN environmental summit in Brazil have agreed on a call for “urgent action” on the world’s environmental challenges. But critics say the draft agreement will do little to actually address the problems. Host Marco Werman talks with The World’s Peter Thomson.

Read the Transcript
The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Marco Werman: The Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development officially opened today in Brazil with a warning from United Nations Chief Ban Ki-moon. He said progress on issues like poverty and our planet’s environmental problems has been too slow and that words must translate into action now. Almost two hundred countries are taking part in the summit and the draft agreement on the table right now is already falling short of Ban’s call to action and critics are already slamming it as weak and even pathetic. The World’s Environment Editor, Peter Thomson, is with me in the studios here in Boston. Are the critics off-base, Peter? Is this draft agreement “weak and pathetic”?

Peter Thomson: Well, it’s almost fifty thousand words, so I can’t say I’ve done more than scratch the surface of it, but from what I’ve seen and what I’ve seen in the news reports we’ve been following, the people we’ve been talking with, “weak” is certainly fair. “Pathetic” – that’s much more subjective, but there’s very little coming out of this as far as we can see that has any teeth to it, that has any real substance in terms of committing any of the world’s countries, major or minor, to doing anything in particular.

Werman: Remind us of the original goal of this Rio+20 summit. What was supposed to be accomplished?

Thomson: Well, it was supposed to really refocus the world’s attention on the challenges of developing. That is essentially bringing the world’s bottom billion people out of poverty and maintaining the standard of living for the six billion above that in a sustainable way, in a way that won’t overtax the world’s resources. “Sustainable” meaning that you’re not digging into your natural capital, you’re not eroding that natural infrastructure that underlies all of our economic activity. It was supposed to refocus our attention on that in a way sort of that the original Rio conference twenty years ago did do. That was the Notice The Earth Summit. And that really did provide some pretty substantial progress. I mean the Kyoto Treaty came out of that, the Biodiversity Treaty came out of that, the Global Environment Fund – a lot of things that people are still fighting over, but they actually made real progress. So it was supposed to be something along those lines. I mean Ban Ki-moon, the UN Secretary-General said this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. It’s not shaping up way.

Werman: You know, you’d think that after numerous conferences on sustainable development and climate change and the environment and, of course, they’re all connected, the delegates from governments and NGOs and the activists would have figured out by now how to make these summits more efficient. With all the urgency around these subjects, what the problem?

Thomson: Well, I’m not sure they can be more efficient. I mean it’s really kind of a sclerotic process. It comes down to a lowest common denominator that’s dictated largely by the narrow interests and the short-term problems of individual countries and it’s a consensus process, so everybody has to agree or nothing gets done. And, obviously, we have massive economic challenges around the world. At their root a lot of them may actually have important environment elements to them, but they are very difficult to see, they’re very difficult to tease out, and right now we’ve got huge immediate things that we need to deal with that seem irrelevant to this and much more important in the short-term.

Werman: So, Peter, with very little actually accomplished at these conferences, is the conference idea played out? Is it time to try something else?

Thomson: It’s probably time to try something else, although there’s a benefit to having this in the global agenda, in the news, having people like us talk about it here and around the world, and having at least to have heads of state, heads of government, high ministers parade in and, at the very least, wave the flag and say, “Yes, this is something we’re committed to.” They are fundamentally vital ideas about the future of the planet, but as a venue for real progress, I think we’re having to look elsewhere.

Werman: The World’s Environment Editor, Peter Thomson. Thanks so much.

Thomson: Thanks, Marco.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.