Severn Cullis-Suzuki (Photo: Rolf Bettner)

In 1992, 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki took to the stage at the Rio Earth Summit as a representative of ECO (Environmental Children’s Organisation), an organisation she had founded aged nine.

She appealed to delegates and world leaders to consider future generations in their decision making, put an end to environmental destruction and think about social justice justice, saying “if you don’t know how to fix it, please stop breaking it,” adding “do not forget who you are attending these conferences for: your own children – you are deciding what kind of a world we are growing up in.” She challenged them to make their actions reflect their words.

Her short speech received one of the three standing ovations at the summit.

Severn went on to study evolutionary biology, and she remains an active member of the environmental justice movement. She now lives with her husband and two children in British Columbia.

In anticipation of the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development, held from 20th-22nd June, Kristie Robinson spoke with Severn to find out what she had to say 20 years after that famous speech.

How did your presence at the 1992 Earth Summit come about?

We had registered as an NGO at the global forum so we had a booth where all the NGOs were exchanging info. But we were just five little kids in a sea of people, and people would come to our booth and we started giving five-minute addresses. My father is a well-known environmentalist and he gave us some of his time to spread our message. On the final day we were packing our bags when we found out someone had dropped out and we were offered their spot to talk to the plenary session.

How did you feel about the overwhelming response you received?

I don’t really know what we were hoping for, but it really gave us the sense we had achieved what we had set out to. To get one of the three standing ovations at the Summit… and I’ve never had negative feedback on what I said, and that’s amazing.

Do you still stand by your words?

The words are as resonant today as they were then. If anything they are more powerful, because we are still on the same path and now more than ever it is fundamental we make changes.

But you know it’s hard to keep the public’s attention on these issues. We had a good moment in 2004 after a few climate issues got the public’s attention and then Katrina brought weather-related disasters right onto the agenda. But then we had the economic crash and that attention was taken away. I thought with the crash we were not connecting the dots – that fundamentally the same system that has caused so much economic loss is also responsible for the environmental problems we are facing.

We need a paradigm shift. We are desperate for that. Trying to live sustainably in the current Western system is impossible. How is it that in 2012 with all the technological progress we have seen, we created a society where it is impossible to live without doing damage? We need a change where it is not all tilted in favour of corporate rule, and this is not extreme thinking.

What do you think of the term ‘green economy’?

You can’t really say ‘green economy’ – it doesn’t work within the current parameters of the term economy. Humans have always had economies, but we need one that makes sense for the systems that have kept us healthy for the past 200,000 years. Since the Second World War we have focussed on this system that only revolves around economic growth – endless growth, endless markets. It’s just crazy. We need to value things that give us health and pleasure and quality of life – to look at a new system of values rather than simply GDP, one that takes into account natural capital. And we need our governments to help level the playing field so we as individuals can do the right thing. In the current system it’s impossible.

Severn Cullis Suzuki with her young son Ganhlaans (photo courtesy of Severn Cullis Suzuki)

During the speech you spoke a lot about the fact that you were a child and speaking for the children of the world. Has having your own children changed things for you?

It’s changed my perspective – I feel the same passion I always felt as a righteous child growing up, but now I do understand why people were so affected by what I said. The love that a parent has for a child is unparalleled. I am a scientist – I like studying rational solutions, but I think that there is huge hope for saving the world based on the fact that parents love their children. And we have not made that connection between our children and what we are doing to them. Since the beginning of time we have looked to the future and looked down the generations, but now with the rise of globalisation and consumerism cause and effect is broken – we don’t see that what we are doing is directly affecting the health and opportunities for future generations. We need to leverage the love parents have for their children and put that vision back together.

I know people who are choosing not to have children as they don’t want to bring them into a world of climate change.

I think that is one of the saddest things I have ever heard. I think that having children connects you to what is truly at stake – it means you can’t not get involved and fight for what’s right. Having kids connects us to a responsibility to hand things over to the next generation.

And I do have hope that things can be fixed. My mother is a powerful feminist and environmentalist, and she says that from the beginning of time people have been trying to overcome societal break ups and issues that have been hugely destructive to their cultures.

But the issue we are facing today is of an unprecedented scale…

This is a bigger challenge: we are now in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. The last one wiped out the dinosaurs, but it was much slower. We now have one that is directly caused by human actions, and is happening faster. This is a massive global and geological event – one that has never happened before.

What do you say to those who still question climate change?

I have stopped responding to sceptics as those people don’t want to listen. And really, we are done with that debate – it’s real and it’s happening. Now we have to deal with adaptation. Millions of people are now feeling the effects of climate change – it’s on the news, the weather is on the news much more than it was before!

But the connection is never made on air – the connection between the extreme weather and climate change.

Yes, the problem is the mainstream media not talking about it. And that is a huge disservice. They are trying to put a balanced perspective on things that are just not balanced anymore; to show both sides of the story, to keep the public confused. Where in this case you don’t need to show both perspectives – the vast majority of scientists are in agreement, and you will never get all scientists to agree on anything! And when you look into who and what is behind those who are sceptics, you generally find big oil.

The media has to step up and take responsibility for its actions and stop acting like there is still a debate – the debate is over. And by airing the views of big oil, they are really aiding criminal activity: the same PR people who were involved in big tobacco saying there was no link between smoking and cancer who are now working with big oil and the organisations involved in the denial propaganda.

So what should we do as individuals?

We have to do two things. Firstly, reduce our own ecological footprints. And secondly, use our voices. Get educated, get involved. Rise up – be more than you are already. It’s asking a lot of people, but in times of social strife, times of war, individuals have to decide what their contribution will be. We are talking about the long-term survival of the human race, and we have already given up a lot of our options for our future. 

The beauty of Rio de Janeiro is that however serious your problems you always have the beach where you can sit and watch the sun sink below the horizon while sipping a caipirinha.

But no amount of cocktail sipping and sun watching can blind us to probably one of the biggest problems the planet has ever faced. It is a problem to which there are solutions, but solutions that our political leaders failed to grasp after three days of talks in the Brazilian city.

They will now be back in their capitals pouring over copies of the document signed by 190 nations in Rio. The agreement, called ‘The Future We Want’, is designed to deal with the effects of climate change, to curb CO2 carbon gas emissions and to ensure the world switches rapidly to cleaner energy sources.

Almost everyone, other than the politicians, agree that it fails to do that, and that it is hardly worth the paper it is printed on.

Weak though it is, many countries will simply ignore the document or have their lawyers scan the small print to find ways of avoiding their responsibilities.

A fine example of climate change hypocrisy came from the conference hosts, Brazil. Speaking on the sidelines of the conference, their finance minister, Guido Mantega, announced new trade deals signed with China. “The expansion of trade with China can be infinite,” he said. “China is fast growing and wants to stimulate consumption so they will continue to buy our commodities. There are no limits.”

That’s great for the Brazilian economy, not so good for the sustainable growth and polluted environment that the world had come to Rio to discuss.

While the world leaders were chauffeur-driven with police motor-cycle escorts to the conference centre, indigenous people, religious groups, environmentalists, and more met in a park near the centre of Rio for a people’s conference.

Meanwhile, across from the main conference centre, on a site to be used by athletes in the 2016 Olympics, business leaders gathered to discuss green technologies and their responsibilities in ensuring a cleaner world.

The representatives of major vehicle and agricultural machinery manufacturers and chemical producers agreed with the Amazonian jungle dwellers, the religious groups and the environmental organisations that we are all in this together.

Vehicle manufacturers now vie with one another to prove they can produce the most energy-efficient, least polluting cars. It makes business sense. It is what their customers want. They do not always agree with the environmental groups on means and methods but they are generally pushing in the same direction.

What they all have in common is their criticism that while we have the know-how, the technology and even the money to solve our environmental problems, what is missing is political will.

Leading scientist Robert Watson, who has advised the US government and World Bank among others on environmental issues, said: “The cost of action is far less than the cost of inaction. But there is a lack of political will at local, national and international levels. Some elements of the carbon industry like the status quo and those who want to see the status quo maintained are maintaining it.”

Representatives of the major energy companies were notable by their absence in Rio.

Leading economist Jeffrey Sachs, said the United States, one of the world’s leading polluters, is influenced by the oil companies.

“We cannot depend on US leadership right now. Behind the scenes the US government has been the major footdragger on a number of issues.”

US inaction on climate change is made worse by this being an election year. The economic crisis in Europe also slows down negotiations and acts as a distraction, an excuse to do little or nothing.

The former president of Costa Rica, Jose Maria Figueres, who is now a campaigner on the climate change issue, said the process was flawed, that the negotiators were often old men who negotiated for the sake of it. “All negotiators,” he said, “should be forced to resign when they reach 45. Half should be women, preferably mothers. Then we’d have an agreement within a year.”

The arrogance of power was very evident in Rio de Janeiro during the conference. Already congested roads were blocked by shiny, black official cars escorted by police motor-bikes and carrying heads of state to and from the conference centre. Helicopters hovered overhead while black-suited security guards eyed everyone suspiciously.

But their strutting is looking increasingly ridiculous as big business, economists, environmentalists and ordinary people lose faith in their ability to lead, in their willingness to deal with the climate change crisis and, put very simply, save our planet.

It is not that they do not have the technology and the money. They do. An often quoted figure was the US$ 1 trillion said to be given in subsidies to the oil industry.

“We must put a price on carbons,” said Robert Watson. “Because that would be a stimulant to sustainable development.”

This was a conference to mark the twentieth anniversary of the first major climate change gathering in Rio. Negotiators have met almost every year since then, in Cancun and Copenhagen, Durban and Bali and later this year in Qatar.

More and more countries and social groups have joined the debate, big business is now on board. The solutions suggested range from the hopefully practical to the ludicrously outrageous.

We now have a clearer idea than ever before about the extent of the problem. The climate change doubters sound increasingly isolated and out of touch.

If there was any hope to be found in the aftermath of Rio+20, it is in the fact that the social and religious groups, business and religious leaders, environmental organisations, some politicians, and you and me are realising that our governments lack the political will to do their job and solve this problem, and that we must either put more pressure on them or forge ahead without them.

The only other alternative is to order another caipirinha and watch the sun sink below the horizon from the Copacabana beach.

It’s not easy to get one-hundred and ninety countries to agree on anything. But that is what has been achieved at the end of the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development. World leaders and their representatives returned to their respective capitals waving the 283 paragraph agreement in the air and hailing it as a great success.

But that is the politicians. The agreement has been criticised as unambitious fluff that fails to bind its signatories to doing anything.

Greenpeace called it a disaster of epic proportions. The former Costa Rican president, Jose Maria Figueres, said: “Governments have failed you. They have not saved face nor saved the planet.”

The leading economist, Jeffrey Sachs, who has been at the heart of many climate change negotiations, laid a large part of the blame on his own government. “Behind the scenes,” he said, “the US has been a footdragger on a number of major climate change issues because it’s in thrall to vested interests.”

The indigenous people, youth groups, environmental organisations and many of the politicians in Rio said much the same, calling the final document, named The Future We Want, a wasted opportunity.

The Rio+20 Executive Coordinator, Brice Lalonde, said it was important to have a document even if everyone was not happy with it. “All the key actors are united behind the same cause,” he said.

Meanwhile, yearly average temperatures continue to rise, glaciers are melting, flooding and drought exacerbated by climate change wreak havoc around the world, especially in developing countries, while the levels of pollution keep growing.

Indigenous leader, Tom Goldtooth, from the United States, urged everyone to pay greater respect to our Mother Earth. “We are all in the same canoe,” he said.

Some will say that at least we are still talking. The nations of the world will meet again later this year in Qatar. But the most commonly heard sentiment heard around the conference centre and at the people’s conference on the other side of Rio de Janeiro was: “What we need now is action.”

Our correspondent in Rio de Janeiro Daniel Schweimler brings us the latest updates from the UN Conference on Sustainable Development currently underway.

If the future of our planet rests on decisions being made at the Rio+20 conference in Rio de Janeiro then we have reason for both hope and despair.

The irony of sitting in traffic for two hours every morning to get to the conference centre is not lost on participants here to discuss the causes of climate change, one of the most obvious being the burning of fossil fuels in our cars and buses. Although the Brazilians would point out that they are the world leaders in the development and use of ethanol, an alternative, cleaner biofuel.

Twenty years after the first major earth summit to discuss how to reduce the CO2 gas emissions that most agree cause the earth’s temperature to rise, they are back in Rio.

A lot has changed in twenty years. Scientists will tell us that average annual temperatures have gone up. Climate change has become an issue. Farmers, human rights activists, women’s and youth groups, indigenous communities, religious organisations and many more have now joined the debate.

The more people involved the more difficult it is to reach consensus. The world’s leaders haggle over the wording of documents at yearly meetings around the world. It was Durban last year, it will be Qatar in November.

The poorer countries say the rich nations cause the pollution from which they suffer; droughts and flooding get worse every year, therefore the rich should pay.

The developed world has been slow to react and even slower to pay. Some, the most notable culprit being the United States, hardly admit that climate change is a man-made problem at all. And they are the world’s biggest polluters with China catching up fast.

Business now wants to be green with even vehicle manufacturers in competition with one another to prove to their customers that they are the cleanest.

The delegates in Rio have a draft resolution that more than 130 countries plan to sign on Friday. But many environmentalists have criticised it as being too weak. They say it does not oblige the developing countries to cut their carbon gas emissions.

As the helicopters carry the world leaders over the traffic to the conference centre, an alternative people’s conference is going on in a park near the centre of Rio.

Indigenous people from Brazil’s Amazon and the Peruvian Andes, environmental organisations from around the world and an array of religious representatives are here, angry and frustrated at the slow progress being made by their political leaders.

We are still a long way from solving the issue of climate change. But twenty years on we have a much clearer idea of what the problem is, some of the solutions are apparent and more people than ever before are involved in the debate. The debate is raging. But as some of the more pessimistic here in Rio are saying: “The clock is ticking.”

The 1984 film ‘Blame it On Rio’ stars Michael Caine. Caine plays middle-aged executive Matthew Hollis who travels to Rio de Janeiro with Joseph Bolgna, aka Victor Lyons, with their respective daughters in tow. Lyon’s daughter, the lusty Jennifer, played by young starlet Michelle Johnson, develops a love interest in the much older Caine. The movie documents their clandestine love affair on the beaches of Rio.

-You can blame the night, blame the wine, blame the moon in her eyes, but when all else fails . . . you’d better . . . Blame it on Rio! –

Twenty years ago, Rio de Janeiro hosted the largest gathering of world leaders in human history to date. Countries joined together to solve world’s environmental problems. The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio was characterised by optimism, camaraderie, and a genuine hope to solve the climate change issue. It produced the Climate Change Convention that later gave way to the Kyoto Protocol.

Rio +20

Twenty years later, the United Nations is returning to the scene with the hopes of re-living the success of the original conference.

High hopes and high pressure are breeding scepticism for the upcoming conference. Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, now head of Green Cross International, is among many warning next week’s summit will not match the landmark summit of 1992. In an editorial piece, the former Soviet president juxtaposed the “optimism and hope” of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 with the “cynicism and despair” looming over this year’s Rio+20.

Background

The sense of hope and optimism that characterised the 1992 summit is notably absent. The international climate change debate and has been plagued by two decades of increasingly unsuccessful conferences.

The hallmark agreement of the ’92 Earth Summit was the UNFCCC whose signing ceremony took place there. The latest UN conference on climate change in Durban last year was by all accounts a fiasco. Twenty years later the UNFCCC has still failed to produce any legally binding agreements.

Robert Slater was at the head of Canada’s preparations for the Earth Summit. To compare the mood of the 2011 Durban Conference last year to that of the ’92 conference is as night to day or as Slater puts it “deep night, bright daylight.”

The ’92 Rio conference was an unprecedented international event. It was the largest assembly of heads of state in human history. Over 170 governments participated with 108 heads of state present

The authority of these conferences has evaporated over the past twenty years. Perhaps the best indicator of this has been the trials and tribulations of the Kyoto Protocol – an agreement that has since been abandoned by Canada, US, Japan, and others.

The power dynamics have shifted. Governments and international organisations no longer hold the cards where multi-national companies and grass-roots communities seem to offer the greatest potential. In the middle, NGOs and academics just seem confused. Slater says, “they don’t know what their job is.”

Unfortunately these conferences, though proven failures, seem to be the only option. “We haven’t found an alternative to the model that was employed in Rio,” says John Stone, former head of Environment Canada’s Climate Change Program. “You see now that that model is very much in danger of disassembling.” Nothing of equivalent potency has emerged.

Critics point to the global shifts and failure of past conferences when speaking about the upcoming Rio conference. However, others suggest that re-visiting the scene of past success may change this and leaders will bond on the beaches like they did in ’92. A modern re-make of ‘Blame it on Rio’.

Argentina

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner will be in attendance at the conference. With only a few days until the conference, the pressure is building as the draft agreement, titled ‘The Future We Want’, remains in debate. The agreement seeks to improve energy, water, and food security in poorer countries, reduce fossil fuel subsidies, and strengthen policies to protect the ocean.

Some countries in Latin America see the draft agreement and the focus of the upcoming conference on a Green Economy as a trap for the developing nations.

In an interview with Página 12, Under Secretary for Environmental Planning and Policy, Silvia Révora, who will be in attendance at the conference, explained some of the difficulties arising already with respect to the conference.

“The big difference is that the core countries are considering the concept of ‘green economy’ as the new environmental paradigm to save the planet,” said Revora.

“We argue that there is no definition of green economy, therefore we can not support something that is unknown.”

Another argument sure to surface next week has created deadlock in previous conferences; developing countries accuse the developed nations of doing too little and asking too much – and vice vesa.

According to Révora, “The central problem is: the core countries do not assume their primary responsibility. What they say is that because the environmental crisis is a global one, we all have to pay the costs equally. The poor countries, developing countries, and them. When they are the ones who have caused this environmental crisis.”

Preparatory talks broke down on Thursday evening as the G77/China bloc of 131 developing countries walked out of a number of early sessions.

They group said they could not talk about issues such as the green economy – which some see as likely to put a brake on development – unless Western nations were clear about the amount of financial aid they were prepared to pledge.

Lucas Campodónico is a member of the international facilitation team for Rio+Vos (Rio+You), described as the world’s largest youth-led news agency. A native of Buenos Aires, Campodónico hopes to use the conference to connect with other environmentalists.

Like many others, he is sceptical about the goals of the official conference. “My expectations of the official conference are really few. I understand that politicians are key and while there is progress in many cases, I think even they cannot take the bull by the horns.”

While he asserts that the conference is important, he doesn’t see world leaders as being able to coordinate solutions, rather, he points to companies and social enterprise initiatives to take the initiative in creating green solutions.

With respect to Argentina specifically, Campodónico sees the lack of political coordination and communication as a major impediment to developing and honoring environmental policy decisions.

International Cooperation?

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (Photo courtesy of UN by Eskinder Debebe)

Pressure continues to rise in the week leading up to the conference. “It is too important to fail, too important to fail,” UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon said to journalists in New York. “We must not waste [this opportunity]. We must have a good practical outcome.”

Nobody expects Rio+20 to produce all the answers, Ban said, but it is crucial that leaders at least agree on the bare bones of a plan. “If we really do not take firm actions, we may be heading towards the end – the end of our future,” he warns. Ban is so concerned about the glacial pace of preparations for Rio that he ordered negotiators to spend five extra days trying to agree on some common goals.

Negotiations leading up to the conference have been forebodingly slow, casting further doubt on the possible success of the conference.

Notable absences from the conference will include US President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. There will be more than 130 heads of state and government in attendance. Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the IMF, also plans to be in Rio. It will be the first appearance at any UN environmental conference for an IMF head.

Some analysts saw Lagarde’s attendance as a sign the IMF was attaching greater importance to the idea of sustainable growth. But even she was urging caution this week about expecting too much from Rio.

In practical terms, success would mean negotiators at Rio agree on goals for rich as well as poor countries. The top issues now are seen as access to energy, with Ban promoting an energy-for-all initiative, access to water, and easing the global food crisis.

Scottish Climate Change Minister Stewart Stevenson pointing the Climate Justice way towards Rio in a Brazilian themed sendoff to the Rio+20 UN talks in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo courtesy of Oxfam Scotland by Colin Hattersley Photography)

Blame it on Rio 2012?

Rio de Janeiro is filling up with heads of state, media, NGOs, and people from all over the world. The city is literally swelling with people and anticipation. More than 26,000 delegates have now been registered for the summit, including politicians, government negotiators, journalists and business leaders.

Despite the criticism, speculation, and general pessimism regarding Rio+20, it is clear the show will go on.

In fact, the absence of powerful heads state may prove to be a blessing. Lasse Gustavsson is executive Director of Conservation with WWF International. Quoted in a BBC article, with reference to the absence of some major world leaders he suggested, “We may look back on this as a historic moment when Europe handed over the sustainable development baton to the emerging economies.”

‘Blame it On Rio’, starring the next generation of world leaders?

Next week world leaders will gather in Rio de Janeiro to begin the Rio +20 summit yet disagreements in preliminary negotiations paint a foreboding picture for the upcoming conference.

The draft agreement – titled The Future We Want – seeks to improve energy, water, and food security in poorer countries, reduce fossil fuel subsidies, and strengthen policies to protect the ocean.

Yet, with two day of negotiations left, only 20% of the preliminary draft has been agreed.

A source quoted by the BBC attributed the complications to discrepancy over punctuation, not principles.

Russia, Japan, the EU and many other parties have objected to key clauses. Furthermore, the draft is already being criticised by many NGO’s as being too lenient to businesses and corporations.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, now head of Green Cross International, is among many warning next week’s summit will not match the landmark summit of 1992. In an editorial piece, the former Soviet President juxtaposed the “optimism and hope” of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 with the “cynicism and despair” looming over Rio +20.

The 1992 conference brought together 170 governments with 108 heads of state. While UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on US President Barack Obama to attend the conference to lend it weight, the president declined. Tuesday, the US State Department confirmed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would lead the US delegation.

Ban has said Rio +20 will be one of the biggest conferences in UN history with over 130 heads of state and government confirming their attendance.

The UN Secretary General and others are optimistic about the conference’s prospects, assuring that it will serve as the building blocks for a future international climate deal.

Despite the low expectations by other organisations, Rio+20 aims to agree on non-binding sustainable development goals.