U.N. sounds environment alarm ahead of Rio summit

* Only four of 90 goals making significant progress
* Climate change, fish stocks showing little or no progress
* Rio+20 conference on sustainability from June 20-22
Jeff Coelho and David Fogarty Reuters 6 Jun 12;

LONDON/SINGAPORE, June 6 (Reuters) - Population growth, urbanisation and consumption are set to inflict irreversible damage on the planet, the United Nations said on Wednesday, and called for urgent agreement on new green targets to save the environment.

The U.N. Environment Programme sounded the alarm in its fifth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-5) report, published two weeks before the Rio+20 summit in Brazil, one of the biggest environment meetings in years.

The June 20-22 meeting is expected to attract more than 50,000 participants from governments, companies and environmental and lobby groups and attempt to set new goals across seven core themes including food security, water and energy.

The GEO-5 report, three years in the making and the United Nations' main health-check of the planet, urges governments to create more ambitious targets or toughen existing ones, most of which have failed to deliver.

Time was running very short, U.N. Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said, as the planet heads for 9 billion people by 2050 and the global economy consumes ever larger amounts of natural resources.

"If current trends continue, if current patterns of production and consumption of natural resources prevail and cannot be reversed and 'decoupled', then governments will preside over unprecedented levels of damage and degradation," Steiner said in a statement.

Of the 90 most important environmental goals in existence, only four are making significant progress, the report said.

Some of the successful goals included those to prevent ozone depletion and providing access to clean water supplies. But it detected little or no progress in 24 goals, such as those aiming to address climate change, depleting fish stocks and expanding desertification.

UNEP called on governments to focus their policies on the key drivers behind climate change, notably population growth and urbanisation, fossil fuel-based energy consumption and globalisation.

Scientists have linked the burning of fossil fuels - oil, coal and natural gas - to an acceleration of climatic changes such as severe drought and flooding. There are also economic costs.

The annual economic damage from climate change is estimated at 1-2 percent of world GDP by 2100, if temperatures increase by 2.5 degrees Celsius, UNEP says.

Current models suggest greenhouse gas emissions could double over the next 50 years, leading to rise in global temperature of 3 degrees Celsius or more by the end of the century.

Most of the impacts from climate change will be felt in many developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, where population growth and rising consumption are putting more stress on dwindling natural resources, the GEO-5 report said.

BACK TO RIO

The Rio+20 summit will not seek to repeat the same outcome of the Rio Earth Summit 20 years ago, which led to the Kyoto Protocol on capping greenhouse gas emissions and a treaty on biodiversity.

This month's summit is set against a backdrop of a faltering global economy and deep concerns over Europe's financial future. The goals this time in Rio are aspirational, not mandatory, yet negotiations on a draft text have been fraught. About a fifth of the text has now been agreed ahead of the meeting, the United Nations said on Monday.

Even mandatory targets have made little or no progress since 1992.

Global carbon dioxide emissions have increased nearly 40 percent between 1992 and 2010, led mainly by rapid growth in large developing nations such as Brazil, China and India, UNEP data shows.

Biodiversity is also on the wane, most notably in the tropics with a 30 percent decline since 1992.

Last month, environmental group WWF said the world would have to be 50 percent bigger to have enough land and forests to provide for the current levels of consumption and carbon emissions.

The Asia-Pacific region, home to more than half of humanity, is key to creating a greener future, says the GEO-5 report. The region is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions globally and is also rapidly urbanising.

Transport-related emissions are expected to increase by 57 per cent worldwide between 2005 and 2030, with China and India accounting for more than half, the report says.

The region is also facing increased demands for water for agriculture and industry yet aquifer levels are falling, rivers are increasingly polluted and being dammed for irrigation and power generation.

The GEO-5 report said goals with specific, measurable targets demonstrated the most success, such as the bans on ozone depleting substances and lead in petrol.

It also says it is crucial for governments to put a price on natural resources such as mangroves, rivers and forests and include this in national accounts.

Steiner called on nations to act.

"The moment has come to put away the paralysis of indecision, acknowledge the facts and face up to the common humanity that unites all peoples." (Reporting by Jeff Coelho and David Fogarty; Editing by Rosalind Russell)

Rio+ 20 Earth summit could collapse, WWF warns
Countries fail to agree on draft text for sustainable development goals and definition of key objectives including green economy
John Vidal guardian.co.uk 6 Jun 12;

The Rio+ 20 Earth summit could collapse after countries failed to agree on acceptable language just two weeks before 120 world leaders arrive at the biggest UN summit ever organised, WWF warned on Wednesday.

An extra week given over to the UN's preparatory negotiations in New York fell into disarray over the weekend as talks aimed to bring countries together to set a new path for sustainable development splintered into 19 separate dialogues with major internal disagreements on the processes to be followed.

"We are facing two likely scenarios – an agreement so weak it is meaningless, or complete collapse. Neither of these options would give the world what it needs. Country positions are still too entrenched and too far apart to provide a meaningful draft agreement for approval by an expected 120 heads of state", said WWF director general Jim Leape.

Countries are not being asked by the UN to legally commit themselves to anything, but only to sign up to an aspirational "roadmap" contained in a document called "the future we want" and to a commitment to the so-called 'green economy' of jobs generated from industries such as renewable energy and energy efficiency. It is hoped that they will also agree to introduce by 2015 a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs) similar in ambition to the millennium development goals which covered areas like HIV reduction and clean water provision. The SDGs could cover areas such as energy, water and food.

However, in a repeat of battles played out in global climate and trade talks, they have fought bitterly over every comma and phrase in the prepartory meetings and in particular are still deeply divided over the definition and scope of the phrase "green economy". They are now expected to take several years to identify, formulate and agree on the goals.

According to both WWF and Malaysia-based NGO Third World Network, the most recent draft text put forward in New York was a "significant weakening" of previous drafts, particularly in the areas of valuing natural wealth and ocean protection.

The best that is now likely to come from Rio is a process aimed to achieve agreement over many years, and a series of eye-catching initiatives proposed by individual countries, UN bodies and large businesses often working together. These include actions to make transport more sustainable, reduce hunger, improve the health of oceans, and to provide electricity for everyone in the world.

Definition of the concept and principles guiding the "green economy" have proved the hardest to reach because what is decided at Rio could favour or limit the development of some countries. The EU and other rich countries want all countries to agree to remodel their economies to manage resources more efficiently, develop renewable and low carbon energy, and reduce pollution.

But G77 countries have argued that while the goal is acceptable, they risk being at a competitive disadvantage in the race for future global markets and are suspicious that the green economy is a pretense for rich countries to erect "green" trade barriers on developing country exports.

They further argue that if they are to sign up to the "green economy", there should be commitments by rich countries to new finance and technology transfer agreements – something so far unacceptable to the US and EU.

Many environment and development NGOs are also fearful of the green economy proposals, which they believe will encourage countries to put monetary value on all nature, reducing forest and ocean protection to markets and profits and undermining principles of ecological justice and collective wellbeing.

"Instead of putting a price on nature we must recognise that Nature is not a thing or mere supplier of resources. What we need is to forge a new system of development based on the principles of collective wellbeing, social and environmental justice and the satisfaction of the basic necessities of all", said Pablo Solon, former Bolivian ambassador to the UN and now director of Bangkok-based NGO Focus on the Global South .

"We cannot keep promoting such destructive model of development that does not acknowledge the planetary limits of economic growth", he said.

Divisions between the countries are now thought to be as deep as any seen in the long-running and separate climate negotiations. Many developing countries are said to be distraught that the US is consistently trying to bury the principles guiding sustainable development agreed after fierce struggles at the Rio earth summit in 1992 and its follow-up meeting in Johannesburg in 2002.

"We are in real danger of going backwards. [The US] wants to reject principles including national sovereignty, the right to development, common but differentiated responsibilities and the obligation not to cause environmental harm", said one observer.

Despite the differences, UN leaders remained upbeat. "I sense a real dialogue – a real willingness to find common ground," said Rio+20 Secretary-General Sha Zukang. "This spirit is encouraging, and we must carry it to Rio."

Kim Sook, ambassador of the Republic of Korea and co-chair of the preparatory committee said that before the negotiations, only 6% of the text had been agreed upon. Now, that number has jumped to more than 20%, with many additional paragraphs "close to agreement".