Rio de Janeiro – This Wednesday (20th) at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff made a plea for developed countries not to take isolated actions in discussing and adopting environment-related measures. She said sustainable development must further the preservation of natural resources, be a poverty fighting-tool, and an inducer of growth.
Dilma warned that at times of crisis rulers tend to concentrate on internal problems and act one-sidedly. “In a time such as this, of uncertainty about the future of international economy, it is very tempting to make national interests absolute. The willingness to [enter] binding agreements is weakened. We cannot let that happen,” she said, claiming that those who suffer the most in crises are women, children, the elderly and most of all, the young.
In her address she championed controversial aspects of the negotiation for Rio+20’s outcome document. She spoke for the principle of common but differentiated responsibility, by which greater concessions for sustainable development are required from rich countries than from emerging ones. This principle was agreed on at the Rio Earth Summit 1992, 20 years ago. To develop, these nations have consumed the environment more than their emergent counterparts can at this time. Thus the rich are expected to concede to a further extent.
The president celebrated the strengthening of the United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep), for which a referendum will be held after the conference, and claimed that triggering the renewal of ideas and processes is the task at hand.
Following Rousseff’s address, China’s prime minister Wen Jiabao announced his country will donate US$ 6 million for poor and emerging nations to train professionals to work in sustainable projects. He also said his country will open US$ 200 million in lines of credit to African countries with “green” projects. Wednesday in the morning (20th), Algerian and Sudanese officials stated that they could not put their sustainable projects to work for lack of funding.
Another controversy-laden topic discussed by negotiators at Rio+20, and which was left out of the outcome document, was the establishing of a US$ 30 billion fund starting in 2013 to finance sustainable projects in emerging nations. The rich nations rejected the proposal on grounds of the financial crisis they are facing. The suggestion was made by the G77, a group of emerging and poor nations which comprises Brazil and China.
*Translated by Gabriel Blum
