ZERO DRAFT

Comments

Comments to the Draft Zero RIO + 20 on behalf of Quercus Associao Nacional de Conservao da Natureza

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Comments to the Draft Zero Rio + 20 on behalf of Quercus Associao Nacional de Conservao da Natureza
General revision:
Twenty years after the first Earth Summit Rio 92, governments, international institutions and civil society representatives from all over the world will participate in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (CNUSD or Rio+20). The main focus of the conference will be the transition towards a global green economy encompassing the challenges to eradicate poverty and building a governance oriented towards sustainable development. As stated by the Secretary General of the Rio +20, Mr. Sha Zukang, the outcomes should reflect in political commitments, partnerships and concrete action on the ground.

February 2012

From the Rio+20 summit it is expected that it initiates a fast and profound process of global transition towards a green economy an economy that generates growth, jobs and eradicates poverty through investment and preservation of natural capital upon which our long term survival depends. It is expected that the concept of green economy will be better defined with practical implications. It is expected that it can be effective in addressing the particular needs of different regions and people. It is expected that it meets the necessities of the poorest and reduces the invulnerabilities of those least protected from the effects of climate change. According to Zapata, the concept of the Green Economy, (...) apart from being vague is substantially optimistic. It advances the believe that the adoption of eco-efficient technologies in key sectors, with market mechanisms, will be sufficient to guide us towards sustainability. There exists however a large debate about what should actually be considered a green technology and what indicators should be applied. () Additionally, the debate does not make reference to a profound change in production and consumption based on radical innovations. Equally vague and limited, the term sustainable development and its explicit meaning (to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs) were consecrated by all countries in 1992. It should be taken into account that every type of consensual diplomatic language, especially when globally agreed, is necessarily vague.

Since the debacle of Copenhagen, and 20 years of tortuous negotiations, Rio +20 has become the focal point for a turn to reinvent the world and renew hope. Rio +20 faces a double challenge to deconstruct the fatality of the tragedy of the Commonsand build a collective project to recover the planet's biocapacity. A change of this importance wont happen easily. The biggest obstacle we face is not that of technological solutions but in fact the political impossibilityto realize the necessary changes in the organization of the international governance structures in order to initiate the recuperation of the planets biocapacity. The Zero Draft finds itself in between the vague term sustainable development, which enters into conflict with the global governance of am effective sustainable society and the urgent necessity to operationalize this green economy. By not referring to the the need to intervene in the necessary structural conditions to change the paradigm, and perpetuating the widely adopted proclamatory pathway, this document risks to become irrelevant, missing the possibility to become an important milestone in the desired transition towards a green economy. Despite the formal concept of green economy already existing, the operational instruments of this new economy have still to be formulated and we still need to find the foundations for this new human construction. However, in a document that should be programmatic we find no clear objectives that indicate the path to take. It is on these structural questions that we focus our analysis:

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Building a green economy is not just about reducing pollution, developing green technologies and improving eco-efficiency and attempting to organize collective fruition through a function of exchange and alienation of the rights to pollute, with all the perverse effects that arise. Constructing a green economy is also maintaining and recovering the natural capital, introducing in the accounts of international relations and in GDP the positive contribution of each intervener in the global ecological system and in this way allowing a positive stimulus for the recovery of the planets biocapacity to sustain human life.

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In a document that should serve as the basis to organize a green economy, there is only a limited and inadequate reference to the objective of Accountability, in point IV a). The creation of an accounting system of positive and negative contributions to the maintenance of the global natural systems should be a central objective for the next 20 years. This accounting should enable the organization of the supply and demand of ecological services and creation of a system for compensation for the benefits provided to all of Humanity. Point 74 refers to the the necessity to maintain and recover the Natural Capital, without the associated Accountability of a system of payment of ecosystem services or ecosystem services compensation as a positive incentive to maintain and increase the availability of these same ecosystem services and the underlying natural capital.

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The compensation for benefits is referred to in a partial manner with regard to mountain people. It does not constitute one of the main objectives of the document as an essential instrument for change and the realization of good intentions proclaimed throughout the document.

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On the other hand, realizing the incentive to make public goods available is only possible with a fiscal system that assures a redistribution on income, based on the positive and negative contributions of each actor to the common interest. This fiscal reform has already been initiated in countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The document does not contain a single reference with regard to the need for fiscal reform, based on the principle of fiscal neutrality, which consists of shifting the weight of taxes on work, income and investment towards taxation on pollution, the use of natural resources and waste.

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No objectives are defined in the area of sustainable energy. Not even the objective to attain 100% renewable energies by 2050, which was already debated.

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As in regard to forests, once more the necessity for maintenance and recuperation is stressed. But no method is proposed how to do this as an integrated component of the economy and no reference is made to the required structural change in order to backup these proclamations. Without the clarification of structural objectives, such as the necessity for the accountancy of contributions, the creation of a system of compensation that allows to invert the paradigm of natural resource exploitation towards a new one that turns ecological services that benefit all of humanity (also defined as public goods), it does not seem possible to find a structural basis that allows to fulfill the list of commitments elaborated throughout the document.

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Within the document there is also no reference made towards the role of environmental education in the construction of sustainable societies and an appreciation of the contributions of civil society organizations in the development of projects, actions and research within the field of environmental education.

As F. Schumacher stated, this are moments of change and not of succession, in which we do what we have to do and not what we can do.

A direco Nacional da Quercus