Sunday, 25th September 2011
Get your thoughts on Rio+20 into the UN by Nov. 1st @ 17.00
Send them to: dsd@un.org, vaturi@un.org and delacruza@un.org
Welcome to Rio con Brio! - my new blog which aims to inject vigour, passion and urgency into the Rio+20 process. I launch it today - the day we open our Call for Applications to the 6th World Youth Congress on Youth and Sustainable Development, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro, April 12-23, 2011 as a Curtain Raiser to the Rio+20 Summit. APPLY NOW on www.wycrio2012.org But this first blog is mainly about reminding you to get your recommendations into the UN by next Monday's deadline!! All our Regional Youth Prepcom statements will go on, along with the consolidated statement that Nicolo is preparing for the CSD Youth Caucus. I shall be posting my own personal recommendations on this blog, later today. And you should send/post your's! I get the sense that, the more submissions the UN get, the happier they will be: not the poor sod who has to read them all - but the UN in general, as it will show to their member governments how many citizens are concerned about the issues coming up at the Rio Summit.
I have been very proud of all our Youth Prepcoms. The European Regional Meeting in Slovenia was one of the biggest. It delivered an excellent 5-part Recommendation to the CSD. The 5 parts are:
1. National Transition Plans: Each UN Member State must make NTPs to a Green Economy by 2014; and implement them by 2030. (So – a complete transition to the Green, sustainable Economy by 2030 – 18 years hence!)
2. An Open Knowledge Exchange Platform: a kind of ‘Wiki-site for Green Technology transfers…’ Transitioning to the Green Economy is too important for the planet’s survival to allow the technologies that will enable it to happen to be patented and made the preserve of rich countries only. They must be held in public ownership and available to all.
3. Education about Sustainability and the Green Economy – must be central to all school and university curricula: examinations must test for competence, knowledge and creativity in this area from the start of primary school to university graduation. It is bad enough if governments don’t force the transition to Green Economies while in office: it is far worse if, while failing to do what they know to be necessary, they fail to educate the rising generation, in great detail, about those necessities.
4. Economic leverages: every kind of tax, subsidy and pricing system must be engaged by governments to make it MORE expensive for citizens to live UN-sustainably and LESS expensive for them to live a green, sustainable lifestyle.
5. The role of Youth: because it is their long-term future which is at most risk from continuation from business-as-usual, youth newly educated about the Green Economy, must be enabled to engage with their elders in local, national, regional and international government to approve the decisions made about green economy policies that affect their future.
The UN DPI-NGO meeting in Bonn greeted this proposal with considerable enthusiasm – but it was not an enthusiasm I shared for the meeting. There was no sense of URGENCY in the meetings, nor in the corridors. Achim Steiner spoke well, as usual – but his remarks on the collapse of the May CSD meeting reflected all that is wrong with the UN’s approach to this Summit. Rather than slam his fist on the table and say: “For God’s Sake! – two years of work on sustainable consumption and production patterns was lost in a final night of stupid wrangling over a paragraph about the occuption of Palestine….” – he mentioned the collapse in ironic terms, asking: “I have to ask: is this the kind of environmental governance member states want?” Well – of course it’s not! But rather than spell out the kind of environmental governance he wants – and we all need, he left the question hanging. Which left us with the impression that the UN has no clue what it wants – or what it dares to ask for!
We had rather better meetings in Brussels with DG-DEV and DG-ENVIRONMENT. DG-ENV Commissioner Potocnik told us what we feared already – that the pre-occupation of all politicial leaders currently with the financial crisis left no room in their minds for serious consideration of the issues coming up at Rio+20. He hoped that would change and told us that the greatest contribution youth can make to the Rio+20 process was to help in the building of trust between North and South.
Other meetings continue – and are planned: as I write, a team of 15 youth leaders are planning youth strategy for Rio+20 in Mollina, Spain; the UNEP TUNZA team are preparing to meet in Bandung, Indonesia next week – at the same time as Peace Child’s own Latin American Regional Meeting in Cordoba, Argentina – brilliantly prepared by former Peace Child interns, Marina Hermann and Alfredo Redondo. Then an East Africa Regional Meeting in Kenya in the second week of October, a consultation in Nigeria – and then we get to 17.00 on Monday 1st November – the deadline for submissions to the United Nations for all recommendations on the content of the Zero Draft Document.
It is of this that I wish to write – for you do not have to have a Regional Meeting or an NGO to contribute. Any one can. YOU should! I urge every to contribute – because the UN commits that: “all submissions will be posted in full as submitted on the UNCSD website: http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/” BUT – you have to make your submission exactly according to the guidelines set down in the UN’s Guidance Document. [For the full document, go to: - what follows is my guidance based upon it.]
To start with, remember the themes and objectives agreed for the Summit:
Themes:
- Green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication;
- Institutional framework for sustainable development;
Objectives:
- renew political commitment for sustainable development,
- assess progress to date and remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development – and -
- address new and emerging challenges.
Anything and EVERYTHING you write has to be related to these. If you do not relate your comments and recommendations to these themes and objectives, they will be ignored.
The Guidance document goes further: although commentators are free, obviously, to comment upon anything that they feel relates to the Themes and Objectives, it suggests that is ‘highly desirable’ for contributions to be ‘focused’ – and that they attempt to address the following FIVE questions:
1. Expectations and Document Structure? What are your expectations for the outcome of Rio+20? What concrete proposals do you have for the document? What do you see as a possible structure for the Outcome document?
2. Existing Proposals? What do you think of the ideas that have come up so far in the Rio+20 prepcoms? EG –
- a roadmap to the green economy (with ‘milestones’ – time-bound dates/targets)?
- sustainable development goals? (to replace the Millennium Development Goals?)
- a ‘revitalized global partnership for sustainable development’?
- Clustering the 500 existing Environment Treaty Secretariats under one roof?
- What do you think of the idea that this one Roof might be an enhanced UN Environment Programme – with all UN Member states required to be members (right now, membership is voluntary – and only xx of the 193 UN Member states are UNEP members.) Also – do you think UNEP should be supported by an International Court for the Environment (ICE) or an Environmental Security Council?
3. Who should be doing what:? How do you think everyone’s doing on implementation? (Not great, obviously!) So how do we close the implementation gap? – and who should be doing what? (Governments, specific Major Groups, UN system, Banks, Private sector etc.);
4. Cooperation mechanisms and partnership arrangements? What other implementation tools should be envisaged? – like a Sustainable Development Commission, or new Council for Sustainable Development?
5. What needs to be done by when? A Time frame: this is really the Road map idea which rides high amongst the existing ideas.(above) When should decisions be reached, transition plans agreed – and when, crucially, should they be implemented? And what penalties might governments agree to punish those UN Member States who lag behind in business-as-usual mode?
There is another area which the Guidance reminds commentators that the UN General Assembly resolution (GA 64/236) requests comments upon. It is in many ways the most interesting: “the following themes are to be discussed and refined during the
preparatory process.” So look at the Themes as they are expressed above: how may they be “refined” in light of what we have learned along our Road to Rio+20?
Green Economy: My own feeling is that this theme could be better expressed, thus:
How to achieve a rapid, comprehensive, just transition from the current unsustainable Brown Economy to a Green, sustainable Economy that powerfully supports and accelerates poverty eradication;
I also feel that the UN must remind Member States of the meaning of the word ‘economy’: many seem to think it just refers to financial systems – banks, hedge funds, capitalist or ‘market economics.’ No! – we have to shriek ever-louder: NO!! Go back to the Greek: oekos = household; munea=management. Economy means ‘Household management.’ It is the whole global system – social, financial, environmental. That needs to be said loudly to all member states who try to argue that the phrase, Green Economy, leaves out reference to People or the Social Dimension. Remember the UN definitition: “A green economy is one that enhances human well-being and social equity while at the same reducing environmental threats and ecological scarcities.” It starts with ‘Social Equity’ and ‘human well-being.’ The purpose of a Green Economy is to create that – and eradicate poverty: poverty will never be eradicated using fossil fuels: they are already too expensive and will only get more so.
Institutional Framework: No one I’ve spoken to outside the UN has any idea what the UN means by this? So it would be better to refine it, thus:
Propose a Framework of Institutions for governance – locally, nationally and internationally – that offer the financial and juridicial enforcement mechanisms which will ensure that all development conserves essential eco-system services for future generations, repairs current environmental damage and destruction – and requires regular reporting of progress to international authorities;
Of course, it would be wonderful if thousands – millions – of young people would send submissions calling for the same, KEY things that emerged from our Regional Meetings around the world. But that can never be the expectation: the point of a consultation like this is to throw up all kinds of different perspectives and points-of-view. The main thing is to get volume. If the UN gets just a few hundred submissions by 17.00 EST on the 1st November – it will send a strong signal to the Secretariat and to Member States that no one really cares about Rio+20: right now – it is fairly clear that very few of us see it being the landmark meeting that we all know it has to be.
So – October 24th looms large in my radar: that is the day we must try to get every newspaper, every news channel, every twitter and Facebook group to call on their members to make submissions to the UN about Rio+20. I urge all of you to get together groups in schools, colleges, community halls and in private homes: go through this guidance – and get your recommendations off to the three e-mail addresses: dsd@un.org, vaturi@un.org and delacruza@un.org.
I will be in Rio de Janeiro that day, announcing the 6th World Youth Congress and opening the Call for Applications. This will be the Congress that reviews all our youth recommendations in light of what the governments have – by that time – agreed should be the official outcome document. We expect this to be very much less than is needed. At the Rio WYC, youth will have one last chance to prepare the outcome document that they know the Governments ought to sign at the June Summit. After it, our goal is to get youth to go back to their capitals and campaign, loudly and noisily, to get their governments to commit to our higher, more aspirational goals.
David R. Woollcombe, Sunday, September 25, 2011
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
A strategy emerges...
I'm just back from the UN’s Intl. Youth Year High Level Meeting – one of the very few times when the UN’s old General Assembly Chamber rings with the sound of politicians speaking up on behalf of youth. Sadly, the outcome document made no mention of Rio+20, the Green Economy or even Sustainability! But the UN Secretary General made up for it in a rousing opening speech where he called Rio+20 “one of the most important meetings in the UN’s History. It will determine our collective future. Heads of State must come,” he said, “And young people must play a central role in bringing dynamic new ideas, fresh thinking and energy to it.”
Well – I didn’t hear any of the Youth Speakers at the HLM mention Rio+20. Certainly, they didn’t add any energy or fresh thinking. I can’t remember any of them even mentioning Rio+20! Though Rio+20 youth Prepcoms are proliferating around the world, the youth of ICMYO (the 30-strong, self-appointed Youth coalition that seeks to coordinate international youth meetings) – did not see fit to insist that this, the youth of today’s biggest generational challenge, should feature in either the youth interventions or the outcome document. I complained about ICMYO and the serious vacuum in youth leadership after the debacle of the Mexico World Youth Conference last year –on which ICMYO also took leadership. Their failure with the IYY HLM is more serious as every UN member state was involved in this.
Into that vacuum stepped PCI and its partner, Taking IT Global, who, together, organised a well-attended side meeting on: “How to mobilise youth globally for Rio+20.”
The answers appeared to be:
“Tell your friends”
and
“Use the power of online networks…”
But the most striking intervention came from my friend, Tariq Banuri – who made it clear, to me at least, why the UN is betting the farm on success in Rio next year. The UN is about eradicating poverty: Tariq explained that, throughout history, economic growth has only occurred in times of cheap, plentiful energy – whether timber, coal, oil or more recently gas. Statistics prove that the world is never going to eradicate poverty using fossil fuels: they are already too expensive – and will only get more expensive. So the transition to a Green Economy is an imperative for the eradication of poverty – not just for Green Growth, the creation of green jobs, avoiding climate change – and all the other reasons that make that transition a no-brainer.
And yet, as the US Congress struggles to increase its debt ceiling, very few of the US citizens I spoke were even aware there is a problem: yes, gas has gone up to four times what it was ten years ago – but, well?! – “Things go up!” they say, “If oil runs out, we’ll find an alternative…. Biofuel or something.” Well – they won’t: even if farmers in the US cultivated every scrap of US agricultural land for biofuels, it would not create enough to meet the demand of the domestic transport fleet – let alone all the power stations and factories currently run on fossil fuels.
Some countries are blazing a trail to a low-carbon or zero carbon future: Iceland, Costa Rica, Sweden, New Zealand, Denmark, Israel and Germany are on their way. Several other nations are making big strides in that direction, including China and Spain. But most are not even out of the starting gate. The problem is not yet on their radar. The USA is only the biggest example.
I have previously pointed out that the transition to a Green Economy has to be a NATIONAL decision. The UN can pester, cajole and advise – but only national governments can levy the green taxes and deliver the subsidies that will make sustainable consumption and production(C&P) cheaper and more attractive. That is why – the best thing that can come out of Rio+20 is a commitment by all UN Member States to publish NATIONAL PLANS for a rapid transition to a Green Economy. The publication should be by – say – June 30th 2013 and the transition should be complete by - say - 2035(?)
In the absence of any work being done on this in your country, I urge youth everywhere to start creating their own National Green Economy Transition Plans. The framework for such plans could include the following:
1. Phase out all subsidies for fossil fuels and unsustainable C & P by 2015;
2. Calculate your nation’s total energy needs and map out a zero carbon energy infrastructure – based on wind, wave, tidal and solar power + biofuels and biogas; to be built by (??) 2025;
3. Revise your Nation’s education curriculum to ensure that education for sustainable lifestyles is at the heart of it by 2015;
4. Make a plan to retro-fit your nation’s housing stock with super-insulation by 2025 to reduce the national fuel requirement;
5. Make a plan for a National Tax regime that rewards sustainable and punishes unsustainable behaviours, especially the use of fossil fuels, with higher taxes.
6. Make national plans for sustainable agriculture and fisheries
7. Make fresh water and sanitation a right for all your nation’s citizens – and map out strategies for delivering it
8. Most important of all, create a national budget that allows for a welfare safety net to support the vulnerable and ensure that all have equal access to basic needs (including health care);
9. Finally – review your security needs and ensure that your nation is creative about peace-keeping through non-military means, and that policing is a community joint effort rather than a centralised, top-down national one;
Of course – there could be many, many other components to such transition plans – and some will run to hundreds of pages. But the point is: the world is looking for leadership in this transition: Ban Ki Moon may struggle to get his UN member state governments to provide it. But – at the very least – the Rio+20 Summit can call for all UN Member States to deliver their plans for Green Growth transition to zero carbon economies by June 30th 2013.
Mr Ban, and the UN, need all the help they can get to deliver even that modest goal at Rio+20. Youth can provide it: we must lobby ministers in our national capitals to develop outline national plans ahead of the June 2012 Summit. We can draw on existing national plans and templates drawn up by those governments that are already looking ahead. And we can do our own research and pester ministers with our own, viable strategies for the transition. For it is in the interests of youth to do so: it is they – not the older generation – who must achieve that transition – or live in energy-stressed, food stressed, water-stressed penury by mid-century. For, make no mistake, poverty and unemployment will get much, much worse if we cling to the business-as-usual brown economy model. With oil at $500 to $1000 a barrel – none of the tenets of our current civilisation will be affordable. With peak oil production passed in 2006, and stocks dwindling fast – that is the future we are heading towards.
So it is a no-brainer that we have to change direction – and Rio+20 offers us the perfect opportunity to make that change.
So – how are we going to do it?
Step ONE: write to the UN – in my next blog, I am going to introduce you to the UN guidance on how to do this, and lay out the PCI Road to Rio+20 Campaign. This involves writing to the UN BEFORE 17.00 EST on Tuesday November 1st. Everyone can write – and every one MUST write – to show the UN and its member states that Youth care.
Step TWO: start work researching your national plans and your own personal action plan for leading a low-carbon / no-carbon lifestyle; write a concept note for a Green Economy business: go to www.geebiz.biz The Private sector built the brown economy, and the private sector will build the Green Economy – and youth must devise the business start-ups that will deliver it.
Step THREE: start raising awareness: ask to host an assembly in your school or college; request a Town Hall Meeting; make your town a Transition Town. Write to your elected officials (of course!) – send out a press release; hold an exhibit at your school or college about the new, clean Green Economy. Plan to do ALL of the above and accentuate the POSITIVE: show how much fun it will be to live in a Green Economy: show how much healthier it will be than the atmosphere currently created by the Brown Economy. (Believe me, it is: I have just been in Beijing – and the smog and humidity kept me in bed for my last day there!)
Step FOUR: keep watching, learning – exploring how best to make this transition. I am! That point about eradication of poverty being dependent upon the transition to the Green Economy – that was an epiphany for me: and I keep having such moments. It is dazzlingly clear to me that those of us who are arguing for a rapid transition to the Green Economy are on the right side of history: but all of us still have masses to learn about how to get there.
Those countries and corporations who join us – they are going to be the world leaders and Fortune 500 companies of the future. Products drawn from oil-fuelled companies will become just too expensive to be able to make any one very rich any more: even the oil companies are going to suffer diminishing returns as the quantity of their sales diminish – even though they will be selling at higher prices. And very quickly, it will not seem cool any more to burn fossil fuels.
For the kicker in all this is climate change. Remember that? It is not being much mentioned in the UN debates I have heard – and, in a way, it seems like a throwback to an earlier, more innocent era. Global Warming, Sea-level rise, extreme weather – “Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!!!!” we screamed! “Get us some legally binding deal to stop those criminals flooding our coastlines, melting our glaciers and polar ice caps…” And it didn’t happen. Governments are not likely to pass laws that they know they are going to break – and then throw themselves in jail for doing so. We have to find another way.
But make no mistake: avoiding catastrophic climate change is the big prize to be won in the race to transition rapidly to the Green Economy. Those consequences have not gone away: on the computer I write this on is a bumper sticker saying: “For the Island States – 1.5 degrees to stay alive!” We’re horribly close to that – and the island states are in real peril.
So – my friends: this is not a game we’re involved in. This is about survival. Your survival – my survival: the survival of our species, our biodiversity, our eco-systems and our civilisation. It is not something we can ever give up on. In the words of good old Dylan Thomas: “Rage! Rage! – against the dying of the light!”
David R. Woollcombe, Tuesday, August 2nd 2011
Saturday, 25 June 2011
Epiphany along the Road to Rio+20
It’s been a busy week – for me, and for fellow-travellers along the Road to Rio. First, there’s been the UN’s Vienna Energy Forum – at which we heard Mr Ban propose the 3 x Es and 30-40-30-30 targets. If you are sad enough to want to know what these mean, watch him at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnhlLpZqi-Q - but, for most of you, I hope you will treat these hoped-for fantasies with the skepticism they deserve: like the 20-20 compact before them, they are likely to die slow, unlamented deaths.
More promising has been the European Commission’s Communication on Rio+20 and my meeting in Brussels with one of the people who wrote it. It’s definitely worth a read (see: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/international_issues/pdf/rio/com_2011_363_en.pdf) It’s purpose is to frame the debate and suggest a shape to the outcomes – not to specify the content of those outcomes as Ban Ki Moon tried to do in Vienna. That’s the job of UN member states and, of course, civil society represented by the major groups. Let’s look at the FOUR outcomes the EU is proposing:
1. A ‘Rallying Call’ – we should think about what might work: what would you write on your banner if you were demonstrating for results at Rio+20? “Green Economy Now!” “Green Jobs Now!” “Just transition now to the Green Economy!” – or what? We need to think about this – and come up with some suggestions.
2. A Roadmap – with milestones and targets; what do we need to get done by when? For example: “Remove all subsidies to fossil fuel industries by the end of 2012!” “50% of our energy from renewable resources by 2020.” “End subsidies to industrial fisheries by 2015.” These are the SMART targets that we need to see in the Political Statement coming out of Rio+20 – and we need to define them, ourselves – as youth! – so that we can give governments, and the Commission, something to chew on.
3. A Toolbox of Policy Approaches - this relates directly to the Roadmap above: if you want to achieve Target ‘X’ – you have to introduce Policy ‘Y.’ Many of the policy approaches discussed in the European Communication are about Green Taxes, removal of subsidies, pricing and regulatory mechanisms – and in this Toolbox, they need to be spelled out and articulated persuasively.
4. A Monitoring and Evaluation regime: by what measures should we judge if we are being successful? Every government seems to accept that we have not been very successful in measuring the speed with which we are transitioning to Sustainable lifestyles. So – in this final component of the outcome document, we need to spell out how we are going to measure progress towards sustainability – or the lack of it.
So where was the Epiphany? It came about when I mentioned that I had been talking with the X-Prize organization in the USA. (These are the people that set up multi-million dollar prizes for making the first solar flight across the USA or the first private voyage to the moon – the point being that a $10m prize leverages many tens of millions in research from other companies to win the prize.) I have been talking to them about creating a prize for the LDC country that comes up with the best National Plan for transitioning to a Green Economy.
And then it hit me: what we should be seeking from Rio+20 is not some grand international plan or ‘agreement’ that’s never going to happen. Instead, we should get governments competing with each other to produce the most effective National Plan for the transition to a Green Economy. For Peak Oil and the imminent end of the Fossil Fuel era requires every government to plan for that Transition: so – rather than encouraging them to avoid biting that bullet by encouraging carbon capture and storage schemes or Emissions Trading Schemes – we should encourage every government to plan an orderly, rapid transition away from a fossil fuel drive economy to one based on renewable energy. For the faster we can make that transition, the less we have to worry about catastrophic climate change.
Epiphany = National Plans – not International Agreements! That’s what we got so wrong about Copenhagen – raising expectations for an international agreement when none was ever likely, or even possible! For the UN does not levy green taxes, or give subsidies, or set regulations: that is the work of National Governments. So our focus has to be on National Plans. There are things that the international community can – and must – do: like policing the global commons – the oceans and seas, outer space – in the same way as it polices air traffic through IATA. And it can organize itself better – by clustering the secretariats for the 500+ Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) into one – or a smaller number of - centre(s). But the main thing we should look for from Government representatives coming to the Rio+20 Summit is ever-more ambitious National Plans.
What should those plans contain? In broad terms, there should be FIVE parts to it:
ONE: Plan for a zero-carbon Energy Infrastructure: each country must do the math – and figure out how they are going to keep their lights on, and the wheels of industry and commerce turning without a drop of fossil fuel;
TWO: Plan for a Tax / Subsidy regime that encourages sustainable consumption and production and punishes unsustainable consumption and production.
THREE: National Education / Training Curriculum that places at its heart learning about the challenge of sustaining a global family of +/- 10 billion people to live in comfort and security within the means of a small, fragile planet.
FOUR: A Poverty Eradication Plan that spells out how the profits of a Green Economy will be used to raise the poorest sectors of society into relative prosperity and comfort with more choices and opportunities for all;
FIVE: A Just Transition: a plan for minimizing the social upheaval of closing down unsustainable industries and activities and opening up sustainable industries and activities so that the workers and families are not left destitute. This will involve massive training and information schemes..
The list could go on and on: we would like to see Youth at the heart of all national plans – with support for youth-led SME start-ups and a focus on green jobs for youth. And there should be provision of social care – for the elderly, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed. And, as we have argued since the original Rio Earth Summit – a sustainable society should be a peaceful, de-militarised society with shared armed forces, open borders and community policing. But those are additions that National Planners can make or not as they wish: all plans should address the key points outlined above – which could be 5 or 10 – or however many we think we can agree upon.
This makes the task in the World Youth Congress(WYC) in Rio in April 2012 more obviously strategic and hugely important. For it should be seen as a dry run for the Government Summit in June – and now it is entirely in the hands of young people. I suggest that WYC delegates engage with their governments BEFORE they come to the Congress – so that they can hear their plans and build on them. They must then discuss with their organizations and peers and add their own suggestions for their country’s National Action Plan – also before they come. At the Congress, we shall have sessions where delegates can compare Plans, adding the best components of each so that they can return with improved National Action Plans to present to their governments.
Bottom Line: the young delegates must come up with, and agree, a series of their own brilliant National Action Plans for a rapid transition to a Green Economy that are far better, and more aspirational, than those of their governments. They must be plans that will make the governments and the media sit up and take notice – and require them raise their game before arriving in Rio six weeks later. WYC delegates, and youth all over the world, must use those six weeks to lobby for improvements to the National Plans.
So – please, please, please: let us learn the lessons of our failures in Copenhagen, Johannesburg and even at the original Rio Summit: some of you will remember those International NGO treaties we spent so much time and effort creating in 1992: they were brilliant but who remembers a word of them now? All that lobbying and flag-waving we did in Copenhagen: it didn’t make a blind bit of difference, did it? If we can come up with a National Green Economy Transition Plan for each of our countries – that is something that we can all work on without raising our carbon foot-print and travelling twice to Rio. And Rio+20 can then become a race to the top for the best and most effective plan – not a race to the bottom to secure the minimum possible shared international agreement.
David R. Woollcombe, June 25th 2011
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
Today we launch the GEEBIZ challenge – a new, and hopefully central feature of our Road to Rio+20 preparations. All the links are at www.geebiz.biz - but in making this launch, my mind is filled with comments from two of the most interesting figures in the preparatory process for Rio+20. The first was from the highly respected political economist, Dr. Maja Göpel, Director, Future Justice at the World Future Council and one of the leading proponents of ‘Intergenerational Justice.” She wrote:
Although their definition tagline sounds great, I think the Green Economy as UNEP defines it until now simply does not work: I have huge problems with the absence of any criticism of the exploitative market structures of Goliath against David corporations which are already far too big in comparison to governments. The top 500 corporations have to be broken up for any meaningful level playing fields in competition that markets are supposed to be… the old domination and exploitation patterns have to be cracked. The big corporations must finally start paying taxes and for their externalities in a meaningful way. Also, I totally disagree that simply turning from using coal to using bio-tech will get us out of the mess unless we tackle our consumerism and growth fetish.
Though I feel that the UNEP Definition of Green Economy simply does work (“A Green Economy is one that results in improved human well-being and social equity while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities…”) – and that ‘breaking up the top 500 corporations’ is an aspiration that no G-20 government is likely to embrace this century, her points are valid and raise justifiable concerns. Concerns which Pavan Sukhdev, who led the preparation of UNEP's 'Green Economy Report,' clearly shares:
Whilst I do not disagree with any of the 12 points you set out for Rio+20(see my Blog of 27/2/2011) - I doubt if they are "sufficient" for the change we seek. The reason is "Today's Corporation".... a cost-externalizing monster that is the main economic agent for three-fourths of the global economy, and which is built on the principle that "the purpose of the Corporation is its own self-interest" (a legal principle - Dodge vs. Ford, 1919)
Until the goals of today's main economic agent become congruent with the goals of society, all your 12 changes, and indeed the economic arguments presented in UNEP’s Green Economy Report, become "necessary but not sufficient." Because of their cost-externalizing, consumerism-promoting, volume-fixated, quality-agnostic, societally-dysfunctional behaviour, "Today's Corporation" must continue to prevail. Indeed, such is the power of self-interest, that Corporate lobbies will resist many of the changes you suggest (eg : Taxes, Oil prices, etc.)
We need a movement to reform the Corporation and evolve it into "Tomorrow's Corporation", or what I call "Corporation 2020" - because I really believe we have no more than 10 years to introduce this new species....
So why on earth is Peace Child International promoting the generation of young green capitalists with its GEEBIZ Challenge? How would a Green Economy Capitalist be any different from the ‘cost-externalizing, consumerism-promoting, volume-fixated, quality-agnostic, societally-dysfunctional’ Brown Economy Capitalist? The answer lies in how you define – and envision – the word ‘Economy.’ The famous Sheridan line about how having a ‘husband disrupts the whole economy of my bed’ – points at the original meaning, which is very much more than a concept embracing money, markets, hedge funds, banks etc. The word comes from the Greek, OEKOS – meaning household; and NOMOS – meaning management with a sub-meaning referring to thrift. So – for me, a Green Economy is all about green, thrifty household management – living lightly on the earth, and being as resource efficient and carbon zero as possible.
As I say, I seriously doubt that any government has the power to break up today’s vast and powerful corporations. As Maja says, many of them are bigger than the governments that supposedly control them. But – in these times of economic austerity – it is surely possible to persuade governments to STOP giving the fossil fuel corporations the $600 – to $700 million dollars in annual subsidies which enable them to engage in the kind of purchasing of democratic results to which Pavan refers. They are dinosaurs – and like dinosaurs – they will eventually die out. Probably not before 2020 – but hopefully by 2050. And they will die out and become extinct precisely because of the kinds of business that the GEEBIZ contest challenges young people to dream and think about.
Micro-generation and feed-in tariffs in Maja’s native Germany are already showing a way to power generation that transcends the massive corporate behemoths. This trend will surely continue building a green economy based on local power production (often as local as house-by-house, school-by-school, factory-by-factory.) Likewise, as green values are embedded in the hearts and minds of rising entrepreneurs, they will see the value of SME corporations that do not shackle themselves to the treadmill of quarterly returns to share-holders, but rather repay their loans to banks, make payroll and distribute salaries to working directors. Also, as consumption fatigue becomes endemic and youth tire of the constant challenge of keeping up with the latest fashion brand or trend, corporations peddling life-style products will see markets decline. The Gandhian principle of making enough for people’s needs – but not for their greed – has to take hold, and the playboys of Monte Carlo in their powerboats which use a ton of fossil fuel every hour to take part in their high-speed (and extremely dangerous) races will become like the incredibly un-cool follies of another era.
For let us be clear: at some point, humanity has got to kiss goodbye to the Brown Economy which has brought civilisation to this point: peak oil, peak coal – peak everything! – dictates that this be so. And the intelligent point at which to bid farewell to it and greet the dawn of the green economy – is next year: at the Rio+20 Summit. The general public, and youth themselves, as they begin to get used to bike hire schemes city centres, electric scooters and – soon – electric cars – are ready for this change. The popularity – and ‘cool’ – of the Toyota Prius is a signal of this trend.
So – as the world gears up to greet that dawn of the Green Economy, GEEBIZ lays down the Challenge to the rising generation to ‘re-invent the Corporation’ – to make companies and products that support a Green economy, and have sustainability as a core purpose. As more and more of these corporations fill the market place, the Tim Jackson / Herman Daly dream of ‘prosperity without growth’ and ‘steady state economics’ – will be realised. And the banks, the hedge funds, the stock-markets and the ‘cost-externalizing, consumerism-promoting, volume-fixated, quality-agnostic, societally-dysfunctional’ will be heading the way of the Dinosaurs.
Inshallah!!
David R. Woollcombe, Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Sunday, 20 March 2011
At the Prepcom in March at the UN, governments still appeared uncertain about what might be expected from Rio 2012. Achim Steiner of UNEP said: “I get the sense that governments are still scratching their heads and asking themselves: why are we doing this?” That gives those of us who are clear about what Rio 2012 is for an amazing opportunity.
I support the vision of the German Government and UNEP itself: Rio 2012 will deliver a road map with bench marks and targets that will lead to a sustainable Green Economy by the middle of this century – earlier if possible.
But the USA and others are leading the charge to lower expectations of Rio 2012: they don’t see it as a Heads of State Summit. The US repeatedly tell us that President Obama will not be encouraged to come. The Brazilian hosts who, along with G-77, still have doubts about the Green Economy moniker, want heads of state to attend. The UN does too: so – they say – it is up to us in Civil Society to create such an unstoppable momentum around Rio 2012 that there will be a whole host of ‘announcables’ that Heads of State will simply have to turn up to announce.
That’s why it’s important that we use every opportunity we have to contribute to the negotiations. We know of three clear opportunities:
Contribute to the UN Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability (GSP) - “to reflect on, and formulate, a new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity, along with mechanisms for achieving it.” A 17-point questionnaire which they are encouragining civil society to answer to feed into their Final Report which will be delivered late November 2011. Go to: www.environmentalgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/UN-NGLS-GSP-consultation-questionnaire.pdf Deadline for Input: 28 March 2011
Contribute to the EU Public Consultation: A 3 x Section, 13-point Questionnaire designed to provide the Commission with initial views from stakeholders for the Communication on the EU position on Rio 2012 which the Commission will publish expected in June 2011. Go to: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/consultations/un%5F2012.htm Deadline for input: April 10th 2011
Contribute to the UN Commission for Sustainable Development’s Zero Draft of the Rio 2012 Statement: Methodologies for submission not yet agreed – but contact: csdmgresgister@un.org for information on how to submit. Deadline for input: November 1st 2011
At the March Prepcom, we were reminded that any input you – or Civil Society - wishes to deliver on Rio 2012 must fall under the 5 x Main themes of the Summit: here they are, and here are my musings on them:
1. SECURING RENEWED POLITICAL COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:
• At the heart of the political commitment to Sustainable Development must be a commitment to Intergenerational Justice. The second part of the Brundtland definition of Sustainable Development is the commitment ‘not to compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs….’
The Baby boomers have landed younger generation with £1 trillion pounds of debt; in 1980, housing in London cost baby-boomers 3.5 times average earnings: today it's x 9. In the 1960s, baby-boomers were paid equivalent of £4.5k p/a to go to university. Next year you will pay £9k p/a for the same privilege.
Today’s youth feel, not unreasonably, that the baby boomer generation care little for how their needs are met: the use of language about Intergenerational Justice, backed up by commitments to the politics of long-termism, renewables and resource efficiency are essential to persuade a sceptical youth population of their governments commitment to Sustainability.
• Governments would be smart to abandon the language of Sustainable Development. Civil Society has struggled to get the public to understand and mobilise behind this phrase for 20 years – and it hasn’t worked. The language of the “Green Economy” is much easier to grasp, more attractive, and thus a better media narrative. G-77 governments must understand this – and use the language that will bring them the sustainable development they want and the long term environmental sustainability their countries need.
• To demonstrate their ‘renewed commitment,’ governments must re-visit their Agenda 21 commitments – and re-commit to them, accelerating their commitment to achieve them. One of the simplest is the commitment to ‘re-orient education towards sustainable development.’ Any new ‘Focussed Political Statement’ coming out of Rio 2012 must commit to organising education so that young people emerging from their schooling with a rich and detailed understanding of their generational challenges to build the green, non-polluting, post-carbon energy infrastructure, to prevent global warming, and to remove the blight of poverty from our world.
• Second: Governments must show that commitment by removing perverse subsidies and introducing green taxes – making it more expensive to live unsustainably in the brown economy – and cheaper to consume goods produced by the Green Economy. Pricing mechanisms are a key part of the architecture of the transition to the Green Economy – and the first step along that road must be to reduce – then phase out completely – all perverse subsidies of the Brown Economy. Only governments can do this – and, in a time of low tax revenues, one would have thought they would want to. However, the UN must introduce some systems of compulsion as retention of perverse subsidies and the absence of green taxes will sustain the Brown Economy long beyond its sell-by date – and tip the world into greater poverty, extremes of weather due to global warming, depleted fish stocks, massive profits for oil companies and thus more widespread corruption in governance, and increased distortion in farm markets;
• Alongside such taxes and phasing out of subsidies, governments must set up large investment funds for the building of the Green Economy infrastructure;
• Finally, governments must lay out a Vision of the clean, green post-brown economy prosperous society. They must promote it as the way that all economies must move – if only because peak production of fossil fuels is upon us, and resource efficiency is the new imperative. So – they should articulate that attractive, compelling vision of the future, and map out the way that they plan to move their nation and their people towards it.
2. ASSESSING PROGRESS TOWARDS INTERNATIONALLY AGREED COMMITMENTS:
• This is the proper work of the CSD and think tanks, university departments and individual consultants that they may hire. With over 500 MEAs, it is impossible for Civil Society to contribute in any meaningful way to such assessments. This needs to be done by development professionals. However, we, in the youth sector, are inviting teachers and students to express their opinions in wide-ranging surveys on Agenda 21 commitments: we shall be pleased to share these with the bureau – but only as background context to their rigourous, quantitative research. Such context is sometimes instructive: For example: we find it interesting that, in regular surveys, the US public express the belief that their government contributes 10-15% of its budget to Overseas Aid. When told that the actual figure is 0.01%, they express disbelief! Our surveys will provide similar perhaps surprising perceptions.
3. ADDRESSING NEW AND EMERGING CHALLENGES:
• The main challenge to have emerged since 1992 is that of climate change. The implications of catastrophic climate change are far worse than feared – and its dangers have captured the public’s and the media’s imaginations. However, the failure of the COP process to deliver concrete results means that the climate change issue is now ‘damaged goods’: it is clear that both governments and civil society are drawing back from using the language of climate change and using the language of green economy instead. This is a wise way to treat this emerging issue – as the solutions of Cap and Trade, and carbon capture and sequestration are expensive, complex to manage, and far from proven technologically. The Green Economy / Sustainable Development approach neatly cuts the Gordian knot of climate change negotiations which many believe are going nowhere.
• Another huge challenge is youth unemployment: 43% in Spain – and double/triple the general rate almost everywhere. With over a billion young people coming on to the job market in the next decade and around 300m jobs awaiting them, this massive waste of human resources is set to get much worse. And, as recent events in Tunisia and Egypt have proved, it is a tinderbox of danger for societies world wide. As Bill Reese, CEO of the Intl. Youth Foundation put it, we have to ‘Open the Windows of hope to the younger generation….’ – give them some optimism about their future, or we face a bleak, embittered generation who will never deliver the prosperity that a Green Economy could provide.
• Uncertainty about Peak Oil and the amount of fossil fuels that can be burned before we release sufficient carbon to trigger catastrophic climate change is an issue that has emerged quite recently: there have been stories of political pressure affecting the scientific conclusions of the IEG. If true, this has to be stopped. Also, we are told that burning just 60% of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves would tip the atmosphere over the 2 degree threshold of catastrophic climate change. If that is true, why are we allowing the fossil fuel companies to prospect for new reserves? The global family must be given the best science possible, unfettered by political considerations to allow us all to move forward, in a consensus, to the Green Economy that must replace the Brown one in this century.
• Terrorism and conflict: by far the biggest obstacle to development – sustainable or any other sort – is war and conflict. Terrorism has emerged these last 20 years as the major thorn in the flesh of many societies. Government, and perhaps more – civil society – must take steps to root it out. Faith communities can lead. Teachers have an important role to play. But governments must re-double their efforts to resolve festering conflicts, make new and deeper commitments to de-militarisation, dismantle their nuclear arsenals etc. – and prepare for collective, global security systems.
4. GREEN ECONOMY IN THE CONTEXT OF POVERTY ERADICATION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:
This is the defining vision of Rio 2012 – and it is a brilliant, attractive one. However, it needs some fleshing out. For the Youth Sector, who will be largely responsible for populating and leading the companies and governments who will build the Green Economy over the next 40-50 years, the priority is training – both technical and attitudinal. A green economy needs green business skills: business schools must take steps to identify and teach these. Also – youth need enhanced entrepreneurial skills: the World Bank call for, “Young people need to be trained, not to seek a job – but to create ten jobs…” Initiatives like the one that splices experiential business trainings on to a High School 6th Form so that some students leave, not just with a paper certificate, but an operational small company, is one that should be promoted more widely. Green Entrepreneurship must form part of the road map to the Green Economy.
And governments and civil society must use the very best media and public relations specialists to promote it effectively: we are convinced that it will prove a much more attractive, accessible concept for the general public than the weirdly convoluted phrase: “Sustainable Development” – (which was always a semantic contradiction.) The idea that business as usual brown economic growth will turn into a downward spiral of recession and decline as fossil rocket in price and run out must become embedded public knowledge; likewise the understanding that Green Growth is likely to be faster, create more jobs, and avoid the twin threats of expanding poverty and climate change – must be promoted to the General public. While not diminishing the complexity, and diversity of methodologies inherent in the building, of a Green Economy – the public must be made to feel that this way lies their future. And it is a prosperous one.
The UNEP definition of a Green Economy (“one that improves human well-being and social equity while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities…”) - must be used and expanded to convince doubters in the South that a Green Economy is NOT a protectionist plot to further separate the rich North from the poorer South. Rather, the growth promised by a Green Economy is likely to favour the Solar Rich South: and any whiff of green protectionism must be stamped out by instructions to the WTO. Developing countries that continue to promote, subsidise and cling to the Brown Economy must face the costs and opprobrium that will accrue to all who do – but the incentives must be set in place by the investment community and international donors that will encourage LDCs and other disadvantaged parts of the world to leapfrog tired, outdated Brown Economy models straight to the clean, resource efficient Green Economy technologies.
5. INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:
We are not much convinced that international legislation is going to deliver the Green Economy or a safer environment. UNEP is fine as it is: converting it into a UNEO is not, in my opinion, going to prevent future Bhopals or Chernobyls or Fukishamas happening. It would be nice to think that governments would pass laws to ensure that polluters would genuinely pay to restore landscapes to how they were before they started stripping out the tar sands oil, or surface mineral mines, or polluting river systems with cyanide-laced tailings: but even if they did pass such laws – companies seem to find a way around them. Easier just to price products produced in such ways out of the reach of customers who might buy them – and create an atmosphere in which companies that operate in that way are perceived as the dinosaurs of the Brown Economy – headed for the abattoir of history.
The one element of Institutional Framework we would like the UN to consider is a better representation of Youth within its systems. Young people will be the builders and beneficiaries of the Green Economy. They will also be the victims if society fails to build it in the first half of the 21st Century. So – the UN should develop its capacity to advise governments on successful youth policy, training, empowerment and motivation. The current 3-4 person Youth Dept. within DESA is woefully inadequate – and, though some excellent work has been done in pushing the Inter-agency Committee on Youth and Development to weave together the activities of the different UN agencies that focus upon youth, I would like to see the UN do for Youth what it has already done for Women: draw together the different youth programmes of the different agencies under the leadership of a new U-S-G who would champion effective youth policies to member states and other UN agencies. In this way, the massive demographic youth bulge currently passing through the world’s least-developed countries can be exploited to economic advantage, not wasted – or, as we have seen in North Africa, become a security risk.
The abject failure of the UN and its member states properly to manage and exploit the opportunity of the UN International Year of Youth is just the latest example of the low priority afforded to youth by most governments: Rio 2012 – and its institutional reform programme – offers another opportunity for Member States to fill this massive institutional vacuum at the heart of the UN – and draw in the energy, talent and idealism of that 51% of the world’s population who are under 25.
David R. Woollcombe, Sunday, March 20, 2011
25th January 2011
Welcome to all the Partners travelling on this Road to Rio+20
The Planet Expects from Rio+20... Intergenerational Justice
On the morning 21st October 1805, before the Battle of Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson raised in signal flags the message which every English citizen remembers to this day. The message was: “England expects every man to do his duty…” Today, as you step on to your planes ( - and massively inflate your personal carbon foot-prints!) - to come to our Partners meeting, I believe the planet expects – the human family expects – young people to do their duty and lead the charge for meaningful results to come out of the Rio+20 Summit. For it is fairly clear that no one else is going to. This is the moment when you have to rise up and defend that part of the Brundtland Definition of Sustainable Development which calls upon present generations not to ‘compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs.’ The experience of the last 20 years is that the present generation of leaders really don’t care about future generations or their needs. My conviction is that you, and many young people do care – and that you are all eager to demonstrate that care with radical action along the Road to Rio+20. Indeed, future generations will be mightily pissed if you jack up your carbon footprints coming to this meeting – and do NOT take radical action as a result.
The job of Rio+20 is clear: it is to launch the building of the Green, renewable, post-carbon economy. Immediately! It also aims to set in place the governance structures that place a premium on delivering sustainability. How? – it’s very simple: governments have to tax unsustainable products and behaviours ( - making them more expensive to consumers) – and reward / give subsidies to sustainable products and behaviours (making them less expensive to consumers.) Only governments can do this – and it is easy for them: a simple matter of adjusting fiscal policy. But, in 20 years, they haven’t and, without enormous pressure, it is very likely that they will cruise the next twenty years finding very good reasons for not doing it.
So - the job of our first meeting this weekend is to figure out how to persuade them. We will go through all the traditional answers: education, lobbying, demonstrations, petitions etc. We will figure out how we are going to develop a brilliant ‘Focussed Political Youth Statement’ – and pester thousands / millions of young people and others to sign up to it.
Further, we will talk a lot about the GEBIC – the Green Economy Business Innovations Contest, and the Green Community initiatives project developed by our Mexican colleagues. All this will build a compendium of evidence to show what young people are doing already so that they can tell governments: “See?! – we’re building the Green Economy. Now we need you to do x, y and z to help us do it more quickly.” We will teach you all we know about advocacy – both physical and online – and we will plan the Regional Meetings, the book, the musical, the computer game etc.
- and we will work, and struggle, and beat ourselves up – but come November, we kind of know it won’t work: chances are, Rio+20 will be just another large, boring UN Meeting.
So we have to do something seriously radical - outrageously different. Which is why I send you Jonathon Porritt’s challenge. (below)
Think about it. We have an amazing chance here. Don’t let’s blow it!
Travel safely – and I look forward to welcoming you all to the White House,
David Woollcombe
David R. Woollcombe, Tuesday, January 25th 2011
From: Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director, Forum for the Future
Dear David:
Good to be in touch again! You asked for some ideas, so you’ve only yourself to blame if the following isn’t helpful!
Initially, reading through the papers you sent me – I felt a weird combination of despair and rage. Twenty years on and here we are going through the same motions all over again. Fortunately, the anger won out – as it usually does these days!
And, ‘getting angry’ is my theme for your weekend! We know how easily politicians ignore, co-opt or smarm all over most of the sustainable development stuff that young people put in front of them. We’ve learnt that this just isn’t enough – however crucial and valuable it is, in all sorts of ways, not least for young people themselves.
So anger alone won’t do it. It needs to provide just the spearhead of something much bigger, something that cannot just be brushed aside.
In your papers, I saw your reference to the University of Vermont’s coalition of legal academics exploring ‘legal sanctions that might be set in place to deter politicians from wrecking the chances of future generations to meet their own needs’.
In fact, as I understand it, this is just one of a number of initiatives out there today, looking at some kind of legal redress to translate the concept of intergenerational justice (which I much prefer, by the way, to intergenerational equity) into formal legal process – and from there into action.
I just wondered if you’d ever heard of an organisation called Client Earth? Google them – they’re brilliant! It would be an amazing organisation to work with if you go down the sort of route that I’m suggesting below.
Here’s how it might develop:
• Working with Client Earth, you come up with a specific ‘actionable’ form of legal redress, on behalf of young people as the plaintive. Essentially, a global class action against today’s rulers.
• Peace Child and its partners in all the different countries use this to recruit at least one young person’s organisation in every country all around the world (I’m sure you’ve done all the research on that long ago!).
• You then snowball a sign-up operation to get thousands of young people’s organisations on board with the global class action.
• Their target is of course the Rio+20 Summit itself, and the ‘world leaders’ who will be attending, but just as important, it should be targeted at all those progressive NGOs (in environment, human rights, development, poverty, climate change and so on) who hang on so fiercely to their role as ‘representatives’ of civil society. Young people should almost be as angry about them as they should be about the politicians!
• In the three months running up to the Summit, pressure as many of those ‘adult organisations’ as possible (on a name and shame basis) to sign up to the same class action – and agree that they will actively support it and even help fund it?
As we all know, the politicians these days are endlessly banging on about young people’s vote. In Rio, each and every one of them should be served with the formal writ indicating that ‘the time is over’ for ‘voice as chat’. From now on it has to be ‘voice in rage’.
So that’s just a thought to add to your deliberations!
JONATHON
