Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development

United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) is taking place this week, June 20-22, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro Brazil to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. Sustainable development’s goals are to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It is an ideal that is seen as the guiding principle for long-term global sustainable development and consists of three pillars: economic development, social development and environmental protection.  

The first UN Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 and adopted an agenda for development in the 21st Century, “Agenda 21 : A Programme of Action for Sustainable Development.” Agenda 21 is the integration of environment and development concerns to fulfill the basic needs of all people (very broadly defined), improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future for all. The plan was to achieve this in a global partnership for sustainable development paid for by the first world nations of 1992. The economic development principals detailed in the Agenda tend to sound like world socialism, but that happens when the goal is for every human being to share equally in food, water, wealth and to use the minimum resources to maximize the number of people who can live on the planet. I expect that the Rio +20 conference will fail with European nations currently under economic stress back peddling on the developing world’s expectations for aid and China and India not using their resource to solve their own problems. The U.S. is sending Secretary Clinton and hosting a U.S. Conference Center.

U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is participating in the Rio +20 conference and has a US Center set up to hold events related to climate change, green economies, sustainable agriculture and sustainable cities. Events at the US Center will be live streamed at http://conx.state.gov/event/rio20/ if you want to watch the events the U.S. is hosting. The UN proceedings are being streamed at this link if you prefer to watch those. Live streaming is a nifty opportunity for those of us who will never have the opportunity to attend the live conference.  http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/conferencessummits/rio20-13-22-june-2012-rio-de-janeiro-brazil/press-conferences/watch/forests-rio-dialogues-session-5-press-conference-rio20/1694285685001

While the stated objectives of Rio+20 are grand and broad. The most basic need is for every human to have access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation. According to Rose George in her book “The Big Necessity,” there are 2.6 billion people on earth without a toilet. The lack of sanitation is the real cause of most dirty drinking water, and results in the death of 1.8 million children each year.  “The…2006 Human Development Report, and annual publication of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), wrote that ‘when it comes to water and sanitation, the world suffers from a surplus of conference activity and a deficit of action.’” The need to improve the level of basic water and sanitation services and the management of the world's water resources as well as wastewater has been emphasized at both previous Earth Summits, Rio (1992) and Johannesburg (2002). These conferences called for actions to improve the way water is managed and used, but has diluted the message with other agendas. Water and especially sanitation services for the poor are lagging behind in key regions of the world and are being buried at the pre-conference meetings by other agendas.

World CO2 Emissions and Durban

More than 10,000 ministers, officials, activists and scientists from 194 countries are meeting in Durban in what appears to be a last ditch attempt to extend the Koyoto treaty and to try and to try to tax all the developed nations to pay for climate impacts on poorer nations through the Green Fund for climate assistance. Durban, the 17th annual Conference of the Parties (COP17) to be held since the United Nations' first began to coordinate an attempt to control global warming through carbon dioxide control has reached the final stretch. At this point it appears that the conference will close without any agreement. The European Union refuses to extend without the United States and China committing and neither country appears likely to make any legally binding commitment. The Climate Change movement has lost its urgency. The failure to get any binding international agreement in Durban may be caused by the global economic problems or by the failure of the Global Warming/ Climate Change models to predict temperatures. Levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst-case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago, but temperatures have not risen as projected by the climate models.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol bound developed countries to cuts of about 5-6% from 1990 levels in global emissions of greenhouse gases as represented by carbon dioxide by 2012. President George W. Bush rejected Kyoto in 2001, saying it did not impose emissions limits on emerging industrialized nations – chiefly China and India, and now China has surpassed the United States as the world largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China (6.9 billons tons in 2009), the United States (5.2 billion tons 2009), India, the Russian Federation (1.5 billion tons in 2009) and the European Union (3.0 billion tons in 2009) were the largest contributors to global emissions growth to a total of almost 30 billion tons of CO2 in 2009 (the specific breakout for 2010 was unavailable from the International Energy Agency, IEA, but the increase worldwide was about 6% 2010). Canada, who signed the Koyoto pact blew through their CO2 levels exceeding their 2000 levels and joined the United States as among the highest per capita emitters on the planet. Canada had agreed to cut emissions 6% below 1990 levels by 2012 as part of the Kyoto Protocol, but Canada’s emissions (0.7 billion tons in 2009) are now 17 % above 1990 levels, largely because of increased emissions related to the development of the Canadian oil industry. Canada failed to meet its Kyoto targets because they refused to take the large economic hit necessary for a big, cold, northern, sparsely populated, oil and natural gas producing nation to achieve them. There are no meaningful penalties for missing a Kyoto emission target. Even the most cooperative countries are missing their Kyoto targets.

However, Japan has been faithful to their word. Japan's Trade Ministry said on Tuesday emissions of CO2 fell 5.6 % to 1.075 billion tons in the year ended March 2010, bringing the Japanese below their Kyoto goal of 1.186 billion tons a year, when taking into account the volumes of carbon offsets Japan has bought from abroad. However, Japan announced that they are reconsidering plans to cut carbon-dioxide emissions by 25% by 2020 due to closing of a significant portion of its nuclear power generation, and the costs of the carbon-credit programs that cost the county almost $11 billion to purchase the carbon offsets by investing in carbon abatement programs in other countries.

The failure to get a binding international agreement in Durban has the Climate Model believers in a frenzy as CO2 emissions are up 6%, to over 30 billion tons, in 2010 40% above the 1990 level. This level of CO2 is higher than the worst-case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago. Securing a commitment from major polluters such as China and India to sign up to a Kyoto II in the future – a move spearheaded by the British and European Union Energy Secretaries appear doomed to failure. The failure to get a binding international agreement in Durban may be caused by the continuing steep rises in annual global CO2 emissions without an accompanying significant rise in global temperatures. Levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst-case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago, but temperatures have not risen as projected by the climate models. The relationship of climate change to worldwide CO2 levels may not be the one assumed in the climate models. In addition, the difficulty in reducing CO2 levels worldwide can be seen in the diagram above. Canada, Russia, and Japan withdrawing from the Koyoto Treaty and the United States not making a binding commitment despite President Obama’s commitment in Copenhagen to reduce United States emissions of CO2 17% by 2020 has doomed Durban.