São Paulo – This Monday (28th) in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations (UN) launched its “The future we want” campaign to start promoting Rio+20, a conference on sustainable development due in 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, 20 years after ECO-1992. The campaign launched today will spawn actions around the world to raise people’s awareness of the importance of the 2012 conference – hence the title "the future we want."
The UN is expecting heads of state of its 193 member countries to participate in Rio+20 next year. The action launched this Monday, however, aims to mobilize a different crowd: civil society. Anyone anywhere may submit written messages, letters, drawings and videos to the UN, via the website www.futurewewant.org or to the headquarters of the United Nations Information Centre (Unic) in Rio de Janeiro. In their messages, participants will describe the world they want in the next 20 years.
The material will be collected and used in the production of videos to be shown during Rio+20, in June 2012. The organizers intend to prompt reflection on the current environmental reality, and on how the quality of living on Earth may be improved without degrading it.
In the official presentation of the Rio+20 campaign, the United Nations undersecretary general for communications and public information, Kiyo Akasaka, stated that rich countries are not truly committed to protecting the environment. According to him, the leaders of developed countries “are not taking seriously the commitments made under the Kyoto protocol 14 years ago to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.”
According to Akasaka, negotiators from UN member countries will meet starting in January 2012 to devise an official document for Rio+20. Meetings will be held on a monthly basis. He has however stated that more concrete targets are required if countries are to maintain the planet’s natural balance.
Representing the Brazilian foreign office at the event, the ambassador Tovar Nunes claimed that the Ministry of Foreign Relations “is already performing this exercise in civil society engagement” through meetings at which members of society express their views on policies for sustainable development.
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*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
