6 June 2012: In a statement on 6 June 2012, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon invited people to participate in online voting for “the future we want,” the latest stage in the Rio+20 Dialogues. From over 10,000 ideas submitted via the Dialogues’ online platform, 100 recommendations were consolidated, in ten areas. The votes in the remaining ten days before the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) will determine the recommendations to be presented to leaders at the Conference.

The Rio+20 Dialogues platform is a social networking initiative of the Government of Brazil and the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which Ban notes is intended to link civil society and the official proceedings of the UNCSD.

He expressed satisfaction that people across the world used the platform to come up with recommendations in each of the critical areas identified for the Dialogues: water, oceans, food, energy, forests, employment, cities, poverty, economic crises, and sustainable consumption and production (SCP).

The recommendations include: protect language diversity to preserve traditional knowledge and support biodiversity conservation; create a tax on international financial transactions; launch a global agreement to save high seas marine biodiversity; restrict tobacco farming; include care for aging populations in the international framework for sustainable development; incentivize the construction of energy efficient buildings; ensure universal health coverage; and design urban spaces to account for empowerment of local communities.

Online voting on the recommendations began on 5 June, World Environment Day, and will continue until 15 June. [Statement of UN Secretary-General] [UN Press Release] [Voting Site]