The three areas in which the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) must reach agreement are: the “triple bottom line” building on the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); focusing on people and daily lives including through nutrition, as well as giving voice to women and young people; and calling for smarter use of resources, protection of oceans, water, air and forests, and harmony with nature.
23 May 2012: In an opinion editorial in the New York Times, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon identifies three clusters of outcomes for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20) and suggests that, if these can be agreed – instead of engaging in “narrow squabbling” – Rio+20 could be the watershed that it should be.
Ban recalls that 20 years ago, at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCSD, or Rio Earth Summit), world leaders had agreed that the only way forward was to “break with the old economic model and invent a new one,” which was called sustainable development. Now we are “back to the future,” facing the same challenges but on a larger scale, according to Ban.
The only possible solution remains sustainable development, Ban says. The three areas in which Rio must reach agreement are: the “triple bottom line” building on the success of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); focusing on people and daily lives including through nutrition, as well as giving voice to women and young people; and calling for smarter use of resources, protection of oceans, water, air and forests, and harmony with nature.
“Mother Earth has been kind to us,” Ban says, and we should reciprocate. [Opinion Editorial: The Future We Want] [UN Press Release]