Articles related to "Rio+20: Dancing to the tune of the green economy "

SPECIAL REPORT / Conservationists who fear that the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro will fail to produce binding commitments to environmental sustainability may have some unsuspecting allies – big corporations.

SPECIAL REPORT / Europe faces an uphill battle to convince world leaders to buy its plan for strengthening global environmental governance at an important sustainable development conference later this week.

SPECIAL REPORT / A UN push to provide electricity to more than 1 billion people who live off the grid is threatened by indecision at an important global development conference this week, despite robust support from EU leaders.

Biodiversity has decreased by an average of 28% globally since 1970 and the world would have to be 50% bigger to have enough land and forests to provide for current levels of consumption and carbon emissions, the conservation group WWF said today (15 May).

Europe faces major obstacles in achieving two of its goals at the upcoming sustainable development conference in Rio de Janeiro, a top EU official admitted yesterday (24 April), but will remain an “ambitious partner”.

European regions are gearing up for the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June by drawing up a list of “key ingredients” in a bid to make sustainable urban development a focal point of the Brazil discussions.

The EU's Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik says he will “test the waters” on his priorities for the June Earth Summit during ministerial meetings in Nairobi that began today (20 February).

China’s growing water problems make it a likely ally for European efforts to press global action on sustainable development at a UN conference later this year, Denmark’s environment minister said yesterday (25 January).

The European Commission's roadmap for a resource-efficient Europe does too little to address environmental concerns, argue green campaigners while businesses have criticised it for ignoring the benefits eco-industries bring to the environment.

If the world is to make any real progress on sustainable development with the renewed momentum sparked by the Rio+20 Earth summit next year, policies need to be better connected to people's daily activities and given teeth by means of proper accountability and enforcement mechanisms, the World Future Council's Maja Göpel told EurActiv in an interview.

As global environmental talks intensify ahead of next year's Earth Summit in Rio, Brice Lalonde, summit coordinator at the UN, called for a binding agreement on sustainable development to be reached via WTO-style negotiating rounds on topics such as energy or agriculture.

As global rhetoric on the need to move towards green economy gains ground, developing countries fear that the new discourse could be used to justify unilateral trade protection measures, merely strengthening inequalities between rich and poor nations and hindering their development.

European institutions should work together to come out with a compact programme that would allow EU negotiators to hold the leading role in the forthcoming Rio Earth Summit, says Staffan Nilsson, president of the European Economic and Social Committee, and EU consultative body.