Spotlight Rio+20: From Top-Down to Bottom-Up: New Directions for Climate at Rio+20

Kristen Sheeran, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight Rio+20 series.

In 2009, I published a book with Graciela Chichilnisky, Saving Kyoto (New Holland 2009), that argued passionately for preserving the economic and political architecture of the only international treaty on climate change the world has known – the Kyoto Protocol. The book was timely: the countdown to compliance with Kyoto’s mandated emissions targets had begun; the international community was gathering that year in Copenhagen to negotiate the next round of climate commitments; and there was hope that the Obama administration could usher the U.S. back to the negotiating table in earnest. More importantly from my perspective, however, was the growing realization that the window of opportunity for stabilizing the earth’s climate system was rapidly coming to a close. The urgency of the crisis demanded immediate, extensive emissions reductions. And I firmly believed that a coordinated international effort that mandated reductions from world’s largest emitters was the fairest and most efficient way to stave off climate disaster.

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Spotlight Rio+20: South American Governments in Rio: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Eduardo Gudynas, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight Rio+20 series.

South American governments will attend the Rio +20 conference in a very strained environment: while at the national level, almost every country has undergone a weakening of its environmental management systems, at the international level, countries do not coordinate their positions. Particularly since such contradictions seem to go unnoticed by international analysts, especially from the English language media, it is necessary to explicitly describe them. Five key issues are presented below.

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Spotlight G20: A Good Place to Do Business?

Aldo Caliari, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

At the G20 Summit Leaders may not have been able to agree on a lot of things. In fact, the European crisis was, like at the Cannes Summit last year, an urgent fire to put out. Its smoke helped cover the rest of the critical issues on which the world is still anxiously awaiting for this self-appointed committee to reshape the global financial and monetary system after the most severe financial crisis since the 1930s and to prove its worth.

But on other areas creeping movement is noticeable and worrisome. One of them is the approach to investment rules and the balance between attracting foreign investment and the need to preserve host countries’ policy space to regulate it appropriately so it serves development.

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Spotlight Rio+20: Beyond Rio+20

Sunita Narain

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight Rio+20 series.

It was June of 1992. The location was Rio de Janeiro. The occasion was the world conference on environment and development. A large number of people had come out on the streets. They were protesting the arrival of George Bush senior, the then president of the US. Just before coming to the conference, Bush had visited a local shopping centre, urging people to buy more so that the increased consumption could rescue his country from financial crisis. Protesters were angered by his statement that “the American lifestyle is not negotiable”. People wanted change in the way the world did business with the environment. They demanded that Bush should sign the climate convention and agree to tough emission reductions. The mood was expectant, upbeat and pushy.

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Spotlight G-20: Does BRICS money for the IMF mean they are bailing out Europe?

Peter Chowla, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

A joint statement by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) released in the middle of the G20 summit in Los Cabos spelled out their plans for contributing to a boost in the resources available to the International Monetary Fund. The IMF wanted more money to backstop countries from the risks facing the global economy, most notably in Europe. Did the BRICS just cave in to pressure and, through the IMF, bail out European banks who lent recklessly? Or is it part of a broader agenda of emerging markets to reform global economic institutions?

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Spotlight G-20: Elites Lose the “Mandate of Heaven”

Gerald Epstein

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

Expectations were low to non-existent for the G-20 summit meeting that ended Tuesday in the sun-drenched resort of Los Cabos, Mexico. Policy analysts and business leaders have decried “policy paralysis” and the “loss of credibility” as most of the G-20 policy leaders rail against the negative impacts of austerity, even as they mostly continue to implement it.

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Spotlight Rio+20: Desert Year:$3 Trillion Thought Experiment for Rio+20

Skip Laitner, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight Rio+20 series.

Because I roam the desert a lot, the UV Index is something I pay attention to.  It is an international standard that measures the strength of ultraviolet radiation from the sun at a given time and place. Canada was the first to adopt such an index in 1992. The U.S. followed in 1994, as have any subsequent number of countries since that time.  Today the World Health Organization (WHO) has standardized the UV Index by replacing the many different regional methods that otherwise provided an inconsistent set of results.

A UV index of zero is essentially a nighttime reading.  An index of 10 (highlighted by the color red) roughly corresponds to the midday sun beating down on the earth through a clear sky.  Here on the desert we often hit the extreme, at noon, with index of 11.  That is the color purple and not really all that uncommon.  And as I reflected on the thought experiment I am about to describe, yes, I was out on the desert floor at roughly the time when the UV Index hit purple.

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Spotlight G-20: Why do NGOs go to G-20 summits?

Christina Weller, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

Los Cabos, Mexico – It certainly feels incongruous, working for an anti-poverty NGO and travelling to exclusive resorts such as Los Cabos in Mexico as part of your job. There are lots of reasons to think it’s not worth it. Should NGOs be lobbying at all? What does the G20 have to do with developing countries? What about the lack of access to decision makers (not to mention the lack of decisions at Summits these days)?

The answers to the questions are obviously not unconnected.

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Spotlight G-20: The G-20 Agricultural Agenda: Agricultural productivity growth in a vacuum

Sophia Murphy, guest blogger

Part of the Triple Crisis Spotlight G-20 series.

This critique of the G-20’s new interagency report on smallholder productivity appears in Spanish in the newsletter Puentes

When the Heads of State of the G20 countries meet in Los Cabos, Mexico on June 18-19, they will have plenty to discuss – not least, the fragile global economy and the instability of international finance. Food security is on their agenda as well. Yet after the intense focus on agriculture and food security under the leadership of France, both ahead of and during its time as host of the G20 in 2011, this year’s efforts are low-key.

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