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Sustainable Development And The Political Treadmill Of No Will

jvelez July 2, 2012 0 Comments
By Julian Velez Rio+20 was supposed to renew political commitment to Sustainable Development (SD) and poverty eradication by integrating the social, economic and environmental “pillars,” or dimensions. It was a conference that was supposed to build on previous agreements to bring the Sustainable Development agenda to the next step. But the spotlight of the conference was taken by the...

The Game of the G77

Lara Shirley June 27, 2012 1 Comment
By Lara Shirley The negotiating strategies employed by the G77+China are very interesting. They are a political entity, and thus have to be highly conscious of the image they project not only to their fellow negotiators but to the wider global community of civil society and media. The G77 negotiators tend to use precise and sophisticated language, often being the only ones to explicitly...

The After Taste Of Non-Wins

jvelez June 26, 2012 0 Comments
By  Julian Velez  Civil Society, represented by Major Groups (MGs) within the conference, could not come to an agreement --  in informal consultations there where two attempts to create a united MG statement that fell apart because the perspectives of what was needed and the level of ambition that was required were very varied. The organization of the conference here at Rio...

The Point of It All

mcalderon June 25, 2012 0 Comments
Point of No Return By Mariana Calderon Sitting back in a bed in a hostel in Rio de Janeiro, trying to regain some sense of normalcy through regular sleep and regular meals, I hardly dare to think back on the last two weeks - or the last 20 years - just yet. Some time to recover, please. Unfortunately, time is something we don’t have much of anymore. In the halls of the Rio Centro convention...

Brazilian fractals

Maria Escalante June 25, 2012 0 Comments
by Maria Alejandra Escalante “I also take it as granted that every created thing, and consequently the created monad also, is subject to change, and indeed that this change is continual in each one. Gottfried Leibniz    Listening to political conversations about the past, the present and the future of Rio+20 has been a daily ingredient of my life since I first jumped into the...