30 April 2012
April UNCSD Negotiations Conduct Stocktaking Plenary at End of Week One
story highlights

By the end of the first week of the second round of informal informal consultations on the UNCSD outcome document, the Secretariat noted that the zero draft had been reduced from 278 pages to 157 pages, a decrease of 44%.

Delegates met in a plenary to assess the use of two Working Groups, among other topics.

27 April 2012: At the end of the first week of the second round of informal informal consultations on the zero draft of the outcome document from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20), delegates met in a stocktaking plenary on 27 April 2012, at UN Headquarters in New York, US. They discussed the use of negotiating groups, topics needing more thinking, and the option of a further stocktaking meeting in the second week.

To date, Working Group 1 (WG1) has handled Sections III (Green Economy) and V (Framework for Action and Follow-up), while WG2 is discussing Sections I (Preamble), II (Renewing Political Commitment) and IV (Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development, or IFSD).

The EU and Canada supported the current WG process. Canada proposed redistributing the workload between the two groups, and was open to the idea of contact groups. Switzerland suggested that thematic issues in Section V-A (Framework for Action: Priority/key/thematic/cross-sectoral issues and areas) be addressed by experts in small groups, and highlighted that further conceptual thinking is needed on topics, including IFSD and means of implementation.

The Republic of Korea asked whether the Co-Chairs – John Ashe of Antigua and Barbuda, and Kim Sook of the Republic of Korea – could streamline the text at the end of next week. New Zealand suggested giving part of Section V-A to WG2 if the latter substantially finished its work on Sections I and II, and having a stocktaking plenary on Wednesday morning, 2 May.

The US suggested leaving questions of placement of text to the Co-Chairs, and perhaps having small groups of interested delegations work on particular paragraphs or sections with deadlines to produce compromises. Co-Chair Kim suggested a contact group could look at Section V-A. After the plenary was suspended for informal consultations, the Group of 77 (G-77) and China said they would prefer to continue working in the two working groups, with the active facilitation of the Co-Chairs.

By the end of the first week of negotiations, the UNCSD Secretariat noted, the zero draft had been reduced from 278 pages to 157 pages, a decrease of 44%. The informal informal negotiations will continue until 4 May 2012. [IISD RS Coverage of the consultations] [UNCSD website for the consultations]


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