Felix Dodds comments on sustainable development, coffee & life

The Commonwealth Peoples Forum meeting prior to the Commonwealth Heads of State meeting endorsed that Rio+20 should have a major focus on the green economy

Sweden speaking for the Euroepan Union and the Candidate Countries Turkey, Croatia* and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia*, the Countries of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidates Albania, Montenegro and Serbia as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Armenia align themselves with this statement Mr. Jakob Ström, Counsellor with the Permanent Mission of Sweden to the UN said to the UN General Assembly "With appreciation for the G77 proposal, the EU values a High-level Event on Sustainable Development in 2012 as an opportunity to make further progress on the mainstreaming of sustainability policies that foster green economy and reduce poverty. For an event to be meaningful there has to be broad agreement in this Assembly on how it can complement already ongoing processes in the field of sustainable development and be planned so as not to divert resources from or negatively affect them. The EU looks forward to engage actively in the forthcom...

In a statement by Annette Ellis the Parliamentary Advisor to the Australian Mission to the UN, Annette said: "We welcome the opportunity to discuss a possible high level event on sustainable development in 2012, and look forward to hearing the views of others on this proposal."

In the statement by Dr Asad Khan Minister of Pakistan to the UN concernign Rio+20 he said: "Clearly the challenge of sustainable development has become far too acute and big for any country to tackle. The UN undoubtedly, has a central role to play in this regard, particularly in advancing the global sustainable development to meet new and emerging challenges in an increasingly globalized world. The need for an integrated and coordinated response to arrest, reduce and rverse the negative trends is, therefore, vital. In this regard we look forward to an early decision on convening a world summit on sustainable development in 2012 in Rio, Brazil to carry out a comprehensive review of the implementation of Sustainable Development Agenda since Stockholm and to delineate a roadmap for future actions to effectively deal with new and emerging sustainable development challenges."

Lastly, we have on our agenda a proposal to convene a high-level event on sustainable development in 2012. We are all aware what such an event takes of time and resources. Still, events of this nature are sometimes required when we are faced with new global challenges. If we agree on the need for a new high-level event, it is crucial that its agenda is forward-looking and focused. It should in no way overlap with or undermine the work of neither CSD nor other intergovernmental bodies. What pressing issues of a political nature may require heads of state and government to gather in order to find common solutions to common challenges? Two topics that have been suggested are green economy and water. Both represent important challenges that are not properly dealt with in existing international fora, and deserve serious consideration. A third proposal concerns reform of the International Environmental Governance system (IEG). This is not a new topic. The challenges faced by today’s system a...

In its statement to the UN Committee Two India backs the Summit. It said: "The need for sustainable development has perhaps never been felt as strongly as it is being felt today. The multiple inter-linked crisis that we face today necessarily need an integrated approach to sustainable development, with emphasis on all its three pillars of economic development, social development and environmental protection. This is key to achieving our devlopment goals, particularly that of eradicating poverty and hunger. We agree with the views expressed in the report of the Secretary General that Agenda 21 was truly an attempt to bring diverse agendas together. It is important that we continue to strive for full implementation of this important consensus as well as its Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. In this regard we also support the holding of a "Rio+20" event in Brazil in 2012 to comprehensively reveiw progress made in implementing the sustainable developmentagenda."

In Committee 2 of the UN General Assembly the Government of Switzerland backs Rio+20: "A new high level event on sustainable development - 40 years after Stockholm, 20 years after Rio and 10 years after Johannesburg - could offer a welcome opportunity to give new impetus to common approaches and solutions for addressing pressing ecological, economic and social challenges. To make sure that such an event is a success, a clear and shared vision of the scope and the expected outcomes will be needed, and a solid and constructive prepration process will have to be put into place. With regard to the scope, we believe that such an event could serve the following purposes: + to assess teh implementation of the outcomes of the former major conferences in the area of sustanble development; + to identify and addtress existing gaps in the international regime with regard to the environmental, economic and social challenges which have not yet received the attention they merit and; + to critic...

The following is the US statement to the Second Committee of the UN GA on a possible Rio+20: "There has been substantial discussion of a possible “Rio+20” conference on sustainable development. We welcome continued work towards sustainable development and discussion on this particular topic. However, we continue to have questions on the necessity of such a conference. We already have a large number of agreements governing our ongoing sustainable development efforts; we must ensure that another meeting does not detract valuable attention from these priorities. Also, we must consider whether a high-level meeting is the most effective use of limited resources. Above all, we advocate continuing progress towards existing commitments and spending resources on actions that directly produce results."

The initial statements by G77 and China and the EU wer made today on Rio+20 in the UN General Assembly Second Committee. G77 and China said: "This cycle also concludes with the preparations for the World Summit,Rio+20. 2012 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit and the ten year anniversary of the WSSD held in 2002. It will be 40 years after the Stockholm Conference of 1972. Guided by the "Rio Spirit", we hope that this conference will provide us with an opportunity to thoroughly review and assess the progress achieved since those momentus summits and provide the necessary political impetus for action required to bridge the implementation gap. In this context, the G77 and China supports and welcomes the offer to host such a Summit in 2012 and looks forward to the discussions on the modalities of this conference during this session." The EU statement by the Swedish Presidency said: "With apprecitation for the G77 proposal, the EU values a H...