(Rio de Janeiro) – Leaders from around the globe gathered to open three days of talks at the United Nations conference on sustainable development, where negotiators have produced a watered-down document that makes few advances on protecting the environment. Negotiators worked for months to hammer out a document that many hoped would lay out clear goals on how nations could promote sustainable development; making economic advances without eating up the globe’s resources.
Diplomats agreed on what all call a mere beginning, a step toward a roadmap on how to embrace sustainable development at the conference dubbed “Rio+20” — coming two decades after the landmark 1992 Earth Summit put sustainable development on the globe’s agenda.
UN Secretary General, Bank Ki-moon acknowledged the world has made little progress on environmental issues since the first Rio meeting in 1992, but said leaders are working to reverse that at the Rio+20 summit. “Twenty years ago, the Earth Summit put sustainable development on the global agenda. Yet let me be frank: our efforts have not lived up to the measure of the challenge,” he told delegates. “For too long, we have behaved as though we could . indefinitely . burn and consume our way to prosperity. Today, we recognize that we can no longer do so. We recognize that the old model for economic development and social advancement is broken. Rio+20 has given us a unique chance to set it right.”