Rio - How we lost another chance to save Earth

He was a silent witness to Edward and Bella’s honeymoon. While he might have blessed that sanctimonious tryst between a vampire and a blonde, he definitely would have winced at the appalling spectacle of an august congregation turning into a filthy orgy. For Christ the Redeemer himself silently sighed at the ingenuity of intellectual myopia displayed by a vast majority of delegates at Rio+20, the recently culminated global sustainability summit at Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil. The outcome of the summit that was touted by many scientists and environmental experts as the greatest chance for global policymakers and corporates to chart out a sustainable path for global economic and social development can be summed up by a statement by Sha Zukang, the Secretary General of the conference – “This is an outcome in which no one is happy. Our job is to make everyone equally unhappy. Equally unhappy means equally happy.” 

The most pertinent question that arises from the above summary presented by Mr. Zukang is that how come a conference that is aimed to bring about ground level legally binding actionable measures to bring about changes in the way energy is used and consumption patterns are altered towards use of renewable and eco friendly resources can be termed as a platform to satiate everyone’s whims and fancies. While organisations from varied fields have been partners to the rhetoric that sustainable development is panacea to all of the world’s problems, behind this facade, the actions are clear testimony that the words green, sustainable development and renewable energy are anathema. $50 billion have been pledged by the corporate world to a UN supported programme to provide energy to the entire world by 2030. Let’s turn back a few chapters to Rio’s cousin Copenhagen, the 15^th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and $100 billion were pledged by the developed world then to the developing countries for that latter to gain access to renewable and clean energy technologies by 2025. Today, that pledge remains but only as a footnote in global climate negotiations. In fact, the Copenhagen Accord itself is biting dust somewhere. Kyoto Protocol, the only beacon of hope for the world till now, is itself about to live out its useful life but no successor is in sight. Thus, Rio was yet another platform for the global political and economic heavyweights to show that long term planning and concrete steps can become the order of the day. But, in order to keep everyone (un)happy, yet another opportunity has been squandered.

Initially, it was hoped by environmentalists and experts that the Summit would finally result in a legally binding multilateral treaty which would in the long term attain 3 objectives: Firstly, fossil fuel use would progressively be reduced and renewable energy production and use would be promoted and implemented strictly both by governments across the globe. Secondly, Poverty alleviation will models will not be based on the premise that poverty can be eliminated through massive levels of GDP growth rates which can only be achieved through incessant burning of fossil fuels. Thirdly, the world’s oceans which still contain a vast majority of all living species (see my previous article) will be preserved at all costs and desertification which is destroying arable land and enhancing net carbon emissions will be stopped through measures like re-forestation etc. which will be initiated on a priority basis.

This is what has actually been achieved in Rio. The 49 page outcome paper which has been named the “Future We Want”, has one of the major statements that the Summit as a whole agreed “to set up a process to create a high level forum on sustainable development and made decisions to establish Sustainable Development Goals.” Well, if after 20 years since the first sustainable development summit was held in Rio, we are still at a stage to set up a process to create a forum on sustainable development, it speaks volumes about what have we achieved in the last 20 years and where are we heading. If the Rio+20 Summit itself cannot be termed as a high level forum for making critical decisions for the future of mankind, nothing else can. Also, the talk about establishing Sustainable Development Goals, a term which appears to be in cahoots with the Millennium Development Goals, is just a facade to hide the inability of the delegates to reach any concrete conclusion. The single biggest farce in the entire document is that there is no standard all encompassing definition of sustainable development used to direct any further action plan. While the terms ‘sustainable development’, ‘sustainability’, ‘sustainable growth’ and ‘sustained growth’ have been used interchangeably, there is no mention anywhere as to how and by when will fossil fuels be reduced even by a certain percentage and how will renewable energy projects be implemented on a massive scale. 

However, the biggest fallacy in this entire endeavour lies in the way the words ‘poverty alleviation’ has been used as a shield by governments, corporations and individuals to continue supporting business as usual way of life which in effect means, growing use of fossil fuels, mass consumption of products and services produced using these fossil fuels to spur economic growth and thus the cycle will continue unabated. India and China, regrettably, did not come up with any proactive or innovative formula to achieve poverty alleviation through eco-friendly ways and continued to emphasise that under the principle of equity with common but differentiated responsibilities, they want the developed world to do its part in implementing a sustainable way of life and also aid developing countries in granting access to finance and technology so that the latter can shift towards an economic growth model based on clean technologies. While China, who definitely displayed leadership role during the summit by expounding that it was taking giant strides to ensure a sustainable future for itself and is ready to help other developing countries as well, it was the only country to term the final document as “comprehensive positive and balanced”. And it was in order to make the document balanced that the word ‘positive’ as stated above was lost in translation. The Chinese chief of the preparatory committee for the conference clearly stated that the importance of the final text lies in the fact that it propounds “countries adopt sustainable development strategies which are appropriate to their national conditions, rather than making such strategies inflexible.” Well, there is not an iota of doubt in the fact that national conditions as stated above (read a strong and power wielding oil, coal and gas lobbies) will never allow for the epochal shift from fossil fuels to clean and green energy resources. Thus, while poverty alleviation can definitely happen through business as usual, it will only push us towards extinction much faster.

And when it comes to saving our oceans and seas, there was virtually no mention of a future course of action on saving the nearly 98% of all species present on earth that thrive in the waters and on whom, millions of humans living in the coastal communities across the globe depend (see my previous article). While there was talk of creating an international authority to protect the waters not coming under national jurisdictions 20 years ago, we were still talking about creating an authority but by when and how are not clear at all. Similarly, in order to put a leash on rampant desertification that is gobbling up arable land and destroying large swathes of biodiversity and ecosystems at a rapid pace there are only pledges for funding to promote reforestation and stop future deforestation but again the schematics and specifics are not present. The word ‘reaffirm’ has been used 59 times in the 49 page final text. Amazingly, we are still reaffirming the need for sustainable development without even being clear on what the term means for different stakeholders, reaffirming the need to create a forum for future negotiations which is exactly what happened 20 years ago in the first summit and reaffirming the need for poverty alleviation but without any concrete commitment by developed nations to provide funding or technology help to poor nations. While the overall pledges for funding stand at $513 billion by all parties put together for a total of 693 projects, the details as to how this funding will be generated, how will it be channelized and how will it be used at the ground level will be ‘negotiated’ in the future as usual.

As one article very aptly put it, the biggest achievement of Rio+20 (termed Rio+20 -40 by many activists) was that “this conference was a conference to decide to have more conferences”.

Rio+20 – 20 years of Hollow Concern

From June 20-22, world leaders from different fields have congregated in the city of Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 Earth Summit to discuss and decide on the future of the planet. The word sustainability has been a part of common man’s lexicon for nearly the last 2 decades but the fact that nobody can still define how and what exactly does sustainable development means in the macro sense shows the micro and utilitarian approach followed by a vast majority of the masses. Coming to the issue of utility, I’ll cite an anecdote which is directly related to the point at stake here.

The other day, I was embroiled in an animated conversation with an old friend regarding the power woes in the country and the significance of individuals’ efforts to promote and expand the use of renewable energy. However, the discussion veered in the direction of a rather indirectly related issue of endangered species. And I was stunned to hear that according to him, the premise on which the objectives to initiate the efforts to preserve an endangered species should be based on the future utility or use of that species to humans. In layman terms, he explained his reasoning with the following example – In case of tigers, the question of whether to preserve the tiger in India or not should be based on whether if the tiger will not be there in the future, is it going to affect our quotidian existence in any way? (Of course the Indian tiger or cheetah, in the absolute biological sense of the word, already went extinct in the 1960s in India and the current species are only some closely genetically linked brothers/sisters of the original Indian cheetah).

However, before I tackle the question of whether the decision to save a species should be based on its future utility or not, there is a concrete body of literature available that clearly highlights the fact that if measures on war footing are not taken in the near future to save hundreds of thousands of endangered species, the entire ecological balance of the planet could be disturbed forever which will be detrimental to the survival of Homo Sapiens themselves. Marine ecosystems have been severely damaged due to excessive fishing and to a lesser extent by oil spills and dredging. Despite a target of a maximum of 4.02 billion kW days set in 2002 for the global fishing industry (kW days is defined as the engine power of fishing vessel in kilowatts multiplied by the no of days the vessel was engaged in fishing activities), fishing capacity clocked 4.4 billion kW days in 2011, nearly 10% more than the maximum limit. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a US $23 billion industry annually which is larger than the total value of the entire Indian fishing industry (that doesn’t mean we can happily devour the fish curry in the restaurants we visit next time).  Only 7.2% of world’s territorial waters and barely 1.6% of the planet’s oceans come under maritime protection laws while as per the Global Marine Species Assessment (GMSA) Report, 20,000 marine species are currently under the scanner for fear of extinction. The permanent destruction of the Great Barrier Reef near Australia and the near extinction of the whale (courtesy a continued permission on whaling by governments like Japan which has sounded the death knell for this largest creature on Earth) are some stand out examples of the precariousness of the situation. In essence, entire fishing and marine biodiversity faces an alarming risk of permanent damage thereby destroying the entire fishing and marine industries upon which, millions living in coastal areas of the world are dependent.

Coming to land, there is absolutely no doubt that the little has been done on the ground except hollow promises since the first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Total primary forest cover globally has gone down by 740 million acres (300 million hectares) in the last 20 years which is larger than the size of Argentina. Average Carbon emissions in the atmosphere, measured in parts per million (ppm) has increased from 358 ppm to 394 ppm by April 2012. The total area coming under the deserts or near desertification has increased drastically in the last century and as per latest UN estimates, the rate of desertification is only speeding up. The world’s largest desert, the Sahara in Africa, is currently expanding at a harrowing rate of 48 km/year in the southward direction gobbling up the rain forests of Central and Eastern Africa which provide employment and livelihood to nearly half the continent. More than 1.2 billion people currently are at future risk of expanding deserts which already cover close to 1/3^rd of the world’s land area. The causes behind this are the usual suspects of excessive cropping, over grazing, improper irrigation and worst of all, deforestation. It is a common estimate that the entire land area of Rajasthan, Delhi and Haryana will be a desert by the end of second half of the 21^st century due to the eastward and North eastward expansion of the Thar desert and the ensuing water crisis could result in nearly 2/3rds of the population without access to clean water (thankfully the entire species of the tigers will not survive to see the day to enjoy the desert safari).

Regrettably, for the past 2 decades, the efforts to tackle the trio of global warming, desertification and biodiversity loss have only been made on paper while the ground reality blatantly describes the story of gross neglect under the garb of the oft repeated term “equity under common but differentiated responsibilities”. This essentially means that the developed world will carry major responsibility for the current malaise since their actions over the last 2 centuries have been the major contributor to global warming and bio diversity loss and thus while all developing countries will be treated at par in terms of benefits and solutions applied in the future, the responsibilities to carry out these actions will mainly lie on the shoulders of the developed countries. This is nothing new but the same old rhetoric that has dragged on since the entire climate change and global warming issue came to the fore front. If Rio really wants to achieve something different and concrete, it will have to make the nations of the world sign a legally binding commitment to bring the free oceans of the world under a global authority to protect their over exploitation while at the same time, enhance technology transfer from the developed to the developing world for eco-friendly implementation of daily practices and to create prohibited areas both in water as well as across land geographies where endangered species can be preserved and protected. 

Coming back to my friends’ question of the long term utility of saving endangered species to the human race, more than half of the world’s population is dependent on non-vegetarian diets for their survival while nearly 90% of the coastal populations are dependent on fishing for subsistence. The entire leather goods industry (which I must admit should cease to exist) globally is dependent on the replenishment of land species they exploit which are fast depleting.  As per the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species which is the most comprehensive and cited list by various global organisations, more than 40% of all species on the planet are at the risk of extinction. The pharmaceutical industry is dependent on the existence of many animals, plants and marine species for maintaining their value chains in the long run. By the way, before I end, I must mention that the oft hated oil lobby was not present in person anywhere in the ongoing summit except that its presence was palpable in the entire 238 paragraph official text of the Rio+20 Summit for under the section of energy, there is a major emphasis on more renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, but then it eloquently brings what it calls "cleaner fossil fuels technologies" into the mix. Can we hear oil, Petrol, gas and coal getting patronised again?

Regrettably and alarmingly, the global community has gone nowhere when it comes to action on the ground. 190 countries, about to sign the text as the final document (which again only talks about voluntary commitments), in the last 20- years have been able to ‘acknowledge’, ‘recognise’ and express ‘deep concern’ about world’s environment crises. Thus, if no hard steps are initiated in Rio and the current farce continues, there is no doubt that we will remain the dominant species on the planet for millennia to come.