Peter Bjerregaard
With exactly one hundred days until the Rio+20 summit, heads of state and government from around the world will meet in Rio de Janeiro with the prospect of a global climate policy vacuum until 2020. Nevertheless, there is reason for optimism: a paradigm shift in how wealth and well-being is measured and managed could be underway.

The first Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 attracted enormous attention as two landmark treaties were signed on biodiversity and climate change. It was also at this summit where the U.S. president George H.W. Bush clearly declared that “the American way of life is not negotiable”. The official U.S. view on Rio+20 has altered to “recognise that sustainable development is not a luxury; it is a necessity for countries at all stages of development”. These two divergent statements evidence the progress of the U.S. in the last two decades.

At a first glance, this new policy offers support to the notion of sustainable development, but it also implicitly reflects the long held U.S. demand that both developed and emerging economies, i.e. China and India, should take on some kind of emissions reduction targets.

The success of Rio+20 should not be judged on grounds of actual reduction targets. Instead, the criteria for success should be based on the official objectives, which are to renew political commitments to sustainable development, assess the current progress of internationally agreed commitments and identify emerging challenges.

Recently, the UN released the landmark report ‘Resilient People, Resilient Planet’. The report carries the message that we need to transform the economy and move towards a sustainable one that avoids market failures and puts a price on pollution (environmental externalities).

Where to from the ‘Durban Platform’?

At the recent climate summit held in South Africa, the “Durban Platform” was agreed on, which is important for three reasons. Firstly, it states that countries should aim for a legally binding agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change applicable to all countries. This is important, as the U.S. has previously favoured a non-binding approach, which has led to a gridlock in negotiations. Secondly, it reaffirms the objective of keeping global
temperature increases between 1.5 to 2 degrees C, and notes that the current policies on climate change falls short of reaching that goal. Thirdly, it sets out a timeline in which a politically binding agreement should be reached by 2015 and actual reductions should begin in 2020.

The bad news is that this leaves a policy vacuum until 2020. However, although political commitments systematically lag behind scientific recommendations, political progress can be detected.

Apart from the new norm of climate change actions being an integrated part of everything from national energy strategies to defence policies, we are also in the midst of a radical change in how we address environmental issues.

As global population grows from 7 billion to 9 billion by 2040, and the number of middle-class consumers increases by 3 billion over the next 20 years, the demand for resources will rise exponentially. By 2030, the world will need at least 50 % more food, 45 % more energy and 30 % more water.

In an effort to address these challenges, the UK government has proposed a new concept: GDP+. The intent is to move beyond the conventional use of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the indicator of progress and include environmental goods, such as water access, renewable energy and food security.

Outlining the UK ambitions for Rio+20, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said “we are committed to achieving growth, but this should not come at the cost of the natural resources we take for granted, or at the cost of well-being. We want to see countries acknowledging the true value of nature to our economy, by reflecting its worth in their accounts.”

The idea could potentially gain momentum at the Rio+20 summit. For years, both the British and French governments have called for a broader measurement of wealth and well-being. The idea of a broader and better measurement than GDP has won acceptance among several countries and is now also pursued by Connie Hedegaard, EU Commissioner for Climate Action. She is now
actively promoting this idea and emphasises that the current GDP model causes overconsumption and disregards natural resources. According to Hedegaard, countries must create a new way of measuring growth and this decision could be taken at Rio+20.

Global Voices is sending twelve young Australian delegates to Rio +20

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About the author

Peter Bjerregaard

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