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The United
Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio 2012, Rio+20, or “Earth Summit 2012” was the third international conference on
sustainable development aimed at reconciling the economic and environmental
goals of the global community.
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Hosted by Brazil
in Rio de Janeiro from 13 to 22 June 2012, Rio+20 was a 20-year follow-up
to the 1992 Earth Summit / United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) held in the same city, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002
World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.
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The ten day mega-summit, which culminated in a
three-day high-level UN conference, was organized
by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and
included participation from 192 UN member states — including 57 Heads of State
and 31 Heads of Government, private sector companies, NGOs and other groups.
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The conference had three objectives:
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Securing renewed
political commitment for sustainable development
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Assessing the progress and implementation gaps in meeting previous commitments.
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Addressing new
and emerging challenges.
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The official discussions had two main themes:
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How to build a green economy to achieve sustainable development and lift people out of poverty,
including support for developing
countries that will allow them to find a green path for development.
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How to improve
international coordination for sustainable development by building an
institutional framework.
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In the months leading up to the beginning of the
conference, negotiators held frequent
informal consultations at UN headquarters in New York City, and in the two
weeks before the conference was scheduled to begin, they managed to reach consensus on the sensitive language in the then
proposed outcome document for the summit.
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Billed as
the biggest UN event ever organized—with 15,000 soldiers and police
guarding about 130 heads of state and government, from 192 countries, and the
more than 45,000 individuals gathered in Rio de Janeiro.
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The
conference centered around Agenda
21, the outcome document from Earth Summit 1992. That document was
considered revolutionary in that it essentially created the term sustainable
development and created the global environmental agenda for the next 20 years.
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The UN wanted Rio to endorse a UN "green
economy roadmap," with environmental goals, targets and deadlines, whereas
developing countries preferred establishing new “sustainable development
goals" to better protect the environment, guarantee food and power to the
poorest, and alleviate poverty.
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A few key global leaders—mostly G20 leaders and
namely United States President Barack
Obama, German Prime Minister Angela Merkel, and UK Prime Minister David
Cameron—did not attend the conference and blamed their absence on the ongoing
European sovereign-debt crisis. Their collective absence was seen as a
reflection of their administrations’ failure to prioritize sustainability
issues.
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The
primary result of the conference was the nonbinding document, "The
Future We Want," a 49 page work paper. In it, the heads of state
of the 192 governments in attendance renewed their political commitment to
sustainable development and declared their commitment to the promotion of a
sustainable future.
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Some important outcomes include the following:
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“The text includes language supporting the
development of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of measurable
targets aimed at promoting sustainable development globally.
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The attempt to shore up the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in order to
make it the “leading global environmental authority” by setting forth eight key recommendations
including, strengthening its governance through universal membership,
increasing its financial resources and strengthening its engagement in key UN
coordination bodies.
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Nations agreed to explore alternatives to GDP as a measure of wealth that take
environmental and social factors into account in an effort to assess and pay
for ‘environmental services’ provided by nature, such as carbon sequestration
and habitat protection.
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Recognition that "fundamental changes in
the way societies consume and produce are indispensable for achieving global
sustainable development.” EU officials suggest it could lead to a shift of taxes so workers pay less and
polluters and landfill operators pay more.
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The document calls the need to return ocean
stocks to sustainable levels “urgent” and calls on countries to develop and implement science based management plans.
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All nations reaffirmed commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.
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