Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will have a different kind of carnival this year. From June 20 to 22, the city will host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which is expected to bring together heads of states, ministers, senior officials, representatives from international organisations, civil society leaders and environmentalists.
Since the conference is a 20th year follow-up of the most famous environmental meeting held in the recent decades"the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Rio Summit " this year's conference is being called Rio+20. While the Rio Summit introduced the concept of "sustainable development," the main theme for Rio+20 is "a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication."
The operative words "green economy" is an indicator of how the global situation has changed in the past 20 years. In 1992, the consensus was for national governments to ensure that economic development did not cause damage to the environment. The important additional realisation today is that this cannot be done by governments alone. It needs the involvement of all stakeholders to ensure that environmental protection does not hurt global and national economies. The idea is to use environmental goods and services to energise economic growth, create jobs and support trade.
There has been a change in realities in two decades. In 1992, the developed countries had economic growth and the developing ones needed jobs....
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12:55 PM, Feb 13, 2012
