CIVIL SOCIETY OCCUPIES THE RIO+20 EARTH SUMMIT | MIKE SAMDEL
at the same time focusing media attention on the big picture problems of our time. This was certainly the viewpoint of many civil society groups when the lead-up to Rio began, and these groups made a point of coming to the table with many good ideas in mind.v However, most of the more than 40,000 civil society representatives at the summit found themselves following the preparatory talks with increasing frustration. They watched as negotiators bracketed and deleted any and all proposals that might have challenged the global status quo. They fought, sometimes successfully, to retain human rights language, but they knew that ambitious proposals for things like the establishment of an international financial transaction tax or a world environmental court were not going to be politically feasible.vi Some groups had set their sights on smaller but still significant victories, such as the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies or the creation of a World Environment Organization on equal footing with bodies like the World Health Organization.vii,viii Others just prepared to take a defensive stance. Most groups arrived alongside mid-level government negotiators, a full week before the heads of state. Days were spent frantically trying to track developments, lobby delegations, and report back to constituencies at home. Then, two days before the conference was scheduled to begin, it was decided that negotiations would take place behind closed doors. No media. No civil society. A negotiated text was released the next morning, and it was far worse than anyone could have imagined. The document, entitled “The Future We Want,” suggests that an international race to the bottom had taken place.ix It was clear that unless high-level officials reopened the
negotiations, Rio would be a tremendous waste of what U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon had called a “once in a generation opportunity.” The 50-page document contains almost no actual commitments. It gives lip service to the idea of building a “green economy” but contains no commitments to ceasing the massive handouts often given to polluters.x It acknowledges the need for stronger environmental governance and increased foreign aid, but commits no funding for either. It even fails to openly acknowledge our dangerous encroachment on planetary boundaries, the critical tipping points beyond which science warns that our most basic ecological life support systems may fail us completely.xi In response to the text, civil society groups issued press releases and made speeches condemning the document for its lack of ambition in the face of clear and present dangers. They tried to use the media to put pressure on heads of state to reopen negotiations and add some substance to an otherwise empty document. At the conference’s opening plenary, representatives of youth organizations condemned the document as unacceptable and asked, “are you here to save face or to save us?”xi,xii The enormous caucus of NGOs took an even more aggressive stand, publicly requesting that the phrase “in full participation with civil society” be removed from the document’s preamble.xiv Heads of state clapped politely at the end of each statement and then, as if these interventions had never happened, took turns congratulating themselves on what they had supposedly achieved. By the second day of the three-day conference, it had become clear that none
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