Summary and conclusions of the Rio Summit. Second Earth Summit
The Rio Summit was a very important meeting, and hopeful at the time. There is no doubt that the foundations were laid there to face the multiple threats that loom over life on Earth in this 21st century.
However, the declarations, agreements and programs that were established there were not binding. In colloquial words, a legal framework was not created that would oblige countries or parties to comply with them. This is why, in part, after more than a quarter of a century has passed, most of the goals have not been achieved. Proof of this is that we are now in a "Climate Emergency", an important step to rectify errors, but very recent to draw conclusions.
The Second Earth Summit, which is also called, was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between June 3-14, 1992. The First Earth Summit took place in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972. The Rio meeting was organized by the UN, with Maurice Strong as its secretary general. It was attended by 172 countries, including 108 Heads of State and Government, in addition to 400 representatives of non-governmental organizations. On the other hand, some 17,000 people attended the NGO Forum, held in parallel to the Summit.
Among the bases established in the 1992 conference we have:
- The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development The establishment of the UNFCCC, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change The creation of the COPs, annual climate conferences The Declaration of principles relating to forests The Convention of Combating desertification. Convention on Biological Diversity. Agenda 21. Global Plan of Action to Promote Sustainable Development.
(The numbering and the order is ours)
It is made up of 27 principles. It is basically a reaffirmation of the 26 principles of the Stockholm Declaration. Of those we are going to write down only the first three. (In the link you can find the 27 principles of the Rio Declaration).
Principle 1: Human beings are at the center of concerns related to sustainable development. They have the right to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.
Principle 2: In accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, States have the sovereign right to use their own resources according to their own environmental and development policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities carried out within of its jurisdiction or under its control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or areas that are outside the limits of national jurisdiction.
Principle 3: The right to development must be exercised in a way that equitably responds to the development and environmental needs of present and future generations.
One of the most notable achievements of the Rio Summit was the establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which entered into force in March 1994, with the premise of strengthening public awareness on a global scale on the problems related to Climate Change. Among the objectives of the UNFCCC is the need to stabilize the concentrations of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in the atmosphere to prevent risks to the climate system.
It was agreed to create the COP, Conference of the Parties, as the supreme body of the UNFCCC and the association of all countries and parties that are part of it. We would no longer have to wait ten or twenty years for the next climate meeting, since it was decided that the COP would be held annually, which has been fulfilled to the letter. COP25-2019 will be held in Chile. Environmental experts, ministers, heads of state and non-governmental organizations participate in the COPs.
The Declaration of the principles for the sustainable management of forests, which does not have mandatory legal force, “basically states that all countries, especially developed countries, should strive to green the Earth through reforestation and forest conservation; that States have the right to develop their forests in accordance with their socio-economic needs, and that financial resources should be provided to developing countries specifically destined to establish forest conservation programs with a view to promoting an economic and social policy of substitution ”.
The Rio Summit addressed the problem of desertification, which has been taking on alarming characteristics for some time. Its effect could be more devastating than that of greenhouse gas emissions, the rise in sea levels or the pollution of the oceans by plastics, although it is not as high-profile as these. In Rio, progress was made on how to deal with the problem and a new integrated approach to it was supported.
In December 1992 “the General Assembly adopted resolution 47/188. The Convention was adopted on June 17, 1994 in Paris and entered into force on December 26, 1996 ”. The lengthy UN document, "United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Countries Affected by Severe Drought or Desertification, Particularly in Africa" consists of 6 parts, 40 articles and dozens of sections and numerals. Desertification is inseparable from the issues of global warming, water scarcity, drought, deforestation of forests and vegetation fires.
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is a legally binding international treaty with three main objectives: “the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of genetic resources. Its general objective is to promote measures that lead to a sustainable future ”.
The governing body of the CBD is the Conference of the Parties (COP). This supreme authority of all the Governments (or Parties) that have ratified the treaty meets every two years to review the state of biological diversity, set priorities and adopt work plans.
Agenda 21, also known as Agenda 21, is “a detailed plan of actions that must be undertaken at the global, national and local levels, by UN entities, the governments of its member states and by particular major groups in all areas. in which human impacts on the environment occur ”. Agenda 21 contains more than 2,500 practical recommendations. It addresses the most urgent problems. “His goal is to prepare the world for the challenges of the next century. It includes specific proposals on social and economic issues, such as the fight against poverty, the evolution of production and consumption models, demographic dynamics, the conservation and management of our natural resources, the protection of the atmosphere, oceans and diversity. biological,preventing deforestation and promoting sustainable agriculture. "
Conclusions:
We must conclude that most of the objectives of the Rio Summit have not been achieved. As we write this, the Paris Agreement is barely a year away. As much as the UN, NGOs and others strive with their good intentions to reverse climate change and its adverse effects, they have found it difficult to turn those intentions into reality. This is mainly due to the fact that the great interests are permanent brakes and retaining walls against any action that is decided in favor of life on the planet that touches their interests. For now, there is no effective counterbalance in society that can have any weight in this asymmetric struggle.
To verify that most of the objectives of the Rio Summit have not been achieved, instead of using subjective opinions or comments without scientific basis, we must rely on data and information provided by science. To know the current state of the planet, science is based on millimeter measurements using GPS; satellite observations; intelligent bathyscaphs that can dive to the bottom of the deepest sea trenches; camera traps; historical archives on climatic aspects and many other technological and scientific resources.
With all this, science is able to know if the surface of the deserts has increased or decreased; if there are more or less plastics in the oceans than a few years ago; how much area of a forest has been depleted in 1, 10 or 25 years; if the global temperature has increased in a certain measured period; that how many forest fires occur each year and how much area is burned; how much the vertebrate population has decreased in half a century; how many species have become extinct and many other information. All this has been done and the result is that we are worse and worse than before, with the exception of the beginning of the closure of the ozone holes, as a result of the agreements reached with the Montreal Protocol.
Thus, we do not need a Delphic oracle to divine the future, as the Athenians did 2,500 years ago. They had a special concern to know the future that awaited them. Nor do we need pythias or fortune tellers to give us our destiny in writing, as they did with the Greeks.
Our future is written every day on the atmosphere with carbon letters. The language is called PPM and the 21st century temple of Delphi is not at the foot of Parnassus but in Hawaii and it is the Mauna Loa Observatory. It is not mythology, superstition, or religion. It is a message that only science can read, the media spread and humanity receive. You have to be foolish not to pay attention to a future that announces danger and not make any effort to avoid it.
PPM means parts per million of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, which for millions of years has produced the greenhouse effect, a characteristic that has allowed life on Earth, due to its ability to maintain a fairly constant temperature on the planet. The increase in PPM, due to our CO2 emissions, increases the greenhouse effect, as more infrared rays remain trapped in the atmosphere. Consequently, the temperature rises, something we have called global warming and its effect climate change.
Let's get to the facts. In 1750, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the CO2 PPM was at 280. At the time of the Stockholm Conference in 1972, it was at 330 PPM. 20 years later, during the Rio Summit it had already reached 360 PPM. The 400 PPM psychological mark was broken in 2016 and has since risen to 415, a figure from May 19, 2019, provided by Mauna Loa.
This is the message that everyone should know. Increases like these had not happened on Earth for millions of years. These are the carbon letters we are talking about, inscribed in the atmosphere, which are warning us that the temperature will be constantly increasing.
The situation is still reversible. The production of electric cars, wind energy and solar energy are on the rise. However, this is not enough, because in the meantime the compulsive search for oil fields continues; more countries join to extract fossil fuels through fracking; The world's forests continue to be deforested to feed the timber industry. Make room for soybean, oil palm, and cattle raising; the contamination of the oceans with plastics, industrial waste and sewage continues.
And we come to today, when adolescents and young people have surprisingly taken the lead and are setting an example in the fight against climate change. Through their movements "Friday For Future", "Jóvenes por el Clima" or "Extinction Rebellion", they seem to represent that counterbalance to the power of the deniers and break the asymmetry of which we spoke above.
Inspired by the young Greta Thunberg, many teenagers and young people with their strikes, marches and mega rallies in hundreds of countries, have begun a titanic work. They seek to attract with their movement the gazes of those who turned their faces to the reports of the activists of the Earth. Her message is addressed to the centers of power, political and economic, demanding the necessary changes to guarantee the future of her generation and the following to come.
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