technology transfer

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...

Too bad no one really wanted sustainable development

Adrian June 24, 2012 1 Comment

by Adrian Fernandez Jauregui Rio+20 has come to an end. After an almost two and a half years long process governments finally came to an agreement just before the heads of state and ministers arrived to Rio de Janeiro. The outcome 49 pages text was inaccurately called ¨the future we want¨, but then re-named to Our common vision. It was tough, even for them, to...

No more brackets, at least for now

COA Admin June 17, 2012 1 Comment

By Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler So the night before last the Brazilian government came up with a new negotiating text, and from now on they will be chairing the negotiations. Being the host country has its perks. The consensus seems to be that the new version isn’t terrible but it leaves out a lot of important stuff, like an Ombudperson for Future Generations. The interesting part is that the...

A Date With History (script) English and Spanish version

Nathan Thanki May 6, 2012 0 Comments

This script was writen by a group of us for a video context in preparation to the Rio+20 conference. by Anjali Appadurai, Nimisha Bastedo, Anyuri Betegon, Graham Reeder, Nathan Thanki, Julian Velez, and Trudi Zundel. The video can be seen here. We are Earth in Brackets and the future we want requires radical change. Radical: Favoring drastic political, economic, and social reforms. Radical:...

Green economy: the square ball that negotiators struggle to roll

Adrian May 3, 2012 0 Comments

by Adrian Fernandez Jauregui There is frustration and irritation revisiting, once more, the hallways and negotiating rooms of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). Despite the commonly used rhetoric about “moving forward” and “streamlining the text", progress is slow and the outcome is uncertain. In Working Group I negotiations (section three and five of the zero draft), the...