CB BureauSince 1992, when the last Rio summit happened, the average temperature across the globe has gone up by half a degree; the pollution levels have climbed up by 15 per cent; natural disasters have affected over 4.4 billion people; and primary forest areas have decreased by 740 million acres (an area larger than Argentina). As far as the summit is concerned, the atmosphere is the same as it was 20 years ago – the difference of approach of the developed, the developing and the underdeveloped countries creates a stalemate and no concrete decision is taken. No impressive statements are made, no ‘purpose’ stands solved, and no promising resolution has been passed.
The Rio+20 summit is commemorating 40 years of the 1972 Stockholm Conference, or the UN Conference on Human Environment as it was titled then. Interestingly, the famous statement ‘poverty is the biggest polluter’, which was made at this conference by India’s then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, is still being tweaked and echoed by leaders of the developing countries to ensure that they are not made to sign the same papers as their developed counterparts. As the agenda is ‘green economy’, leaders from the developed world are arguing that a green economy can happen only after achievement of the ‘necessary’ economy. Hence, the developed nations should not have equal green norms for the developing ones.
The issues that Rio+20 intends to resolve are almost the same that it had in its agenda about two decades ag the consumption patterns across the globe, the increasing gaps between the rich and the poor, and the environmental concerns. In the context of the last-mentioned point, it is known that the developed countries refuse to take responsibility for their past emissions”the real cause of global warming.
On June 21, Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan’s statement from Rio was: ‘We remain disappointed with the weak political will in developed countries to provide enhanced means of implementation to developing countries.’ The statement was a clear indicator that we should not expect much from the summit.
The minister, however, sought to soothe the ego of the nation by declaring thus: ‘We are glad that we (summit participants) have agreed to set up two important mechanisms, one for technology transfer and another for finance. Both were Indian proposals. India is now accepted as the leader of the developing countries.’
Google-ing to see how the world is reacting to the event, it appears that activists, NGOs and the European Union are grumbling that it has all been a gigantic waste of time.