Heads of state arrived at the UN’s Rio+20 Earth Summit in Brazil this month to be presented with a pre-agreed draft agreement to which they were able to add little more than a signature. While UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and attendees such as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed optimism, campaigners and politicians criticised a lack of ambition and what Friends of the Earth's director of policy and campaigns Craig Bennett called “woolly definitions, old ideas and missing deadlines”. The main outcome of the conference of policymakers was a plan to set Sustainable Development Goals by 2015, although negotiators were unable to agree on themes.
The most concrete achievements, however, came from businesses. Around 1,400 executives attended the UN Global Compact’s Corporate Sustainability Forum, which preceded the conference of world leaders, and companies and governments collectively pledged £330 billion of investment in projects aimed at boosting sustainable resource management. The pledges range from individual company commitments to high-profile partnerships. For example, the US government has announced that it will partner with more than 400 companies and brands in the Consumer Goods Forum to achieve zero net deforestation in their supply chains by 2020.
The CEOs of 45 companies, including GlaxoSmithKline, Nestlé, and Coca-Cola, signed a special Communiqué on water security, pledging to expand their water management practices, and 39 banks, investors and insurers backed the Natural Capital Declaration on valuing the environment. Meanwhile, about 30 companies including ING, Munich Re and Aviva signed up to new Principles for Sustainable Insurance. Malcolm Preston, global lead for sustainability and climate change at PwC, said that policymakers had effectively “passed the baton” of responsibility for building the green economy to the business community. (The Guardian; BusinessGreen;UN Global Compact; Environmental Leader)
Brazilian environmentalists face tough battles
The Rio+20 Earth Summit has come at a critical moment for environmentalism in Brazil, and has spurred heated debate across the country. Foremost is controversy over proposed revisions to Brazil’s forest code, which critics argue could dramatically weaken the protection of rainforests and grant an amnesty to illegal loggers. The revisions, supported by Brazil’s powerful landowners and farmers, were partially vetoed by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff last month, but will soon be returning to Congress for further debate.
Meanwhile, Brazilian politicians have been debating a bill that would open up the nation’s vast indigenous territories for mining. Mining of indigenous lands is today illegal under the constitution but the bill would seek to “regularise” this by proposing that about 2-3% of the gross revenues of any mine be given to the local indigenous communities. The proposal has angered native peoples already under intense pressure from logging, ranchers and hydroelectric projects such as the under-construction Belo Monte dam. (The Guardian; Financial Times*)
Europe & North America
New emissions policy will force biggest UK firms to reveal CO2 figures
Public companies in the UK are to become the first in the world forced to publish full details of the greenhouse gases they produce, under plans announced by the government at Rio+20. About 1,800 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, including some of the biggest corporate names in the world such as BP, Tesco and Tate & Lyle, will have to publish their emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from April next year. The move will please business leaders and organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry, which have urged the government for regulations to provide greater transparency and enable companies to be easily compared. (The Guardian)
Germany sets new solar power record
German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity – equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity – for several hours on two sunny days at the end of May. Norbert Allnoch, director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR), a renewable energy thinktank, said the solar power generated met nearly 50% of the nation's midday electricity needs. "Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity," he said. Germany has nearly as much installed solar power generation capacity as the rest of the world combined and gets about 4% of its overall annual electricity needs from the sun alone. It aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 1990 levels by 2020, while also phasing out nuclear power by 2022. (Reuters)
Asia
'World's biggest float' to kick-start explosion in nuclear construction
China National Nuclear Power, the biggest nuclear power developer in China, has announced that the proceeds from its stock market listing will help to fund the $27 billion cost of five new reactors. China wants to build 100 reactors in the next 20 years, racing ahead of Western countries, such as Britain, that also want to expand their fleets. The German companies E.ON and RWE recently scrapped a joint venture to build new reactors in the UK and fears are growing that EDF Energy will scale back or cancel its planned British investment. (The Times)
‘Greenwashing’ accusations reach China
In a sign of the country’s fast-growing levels of environmental awareness, accusations of ‘greenwashing’ have begun to hit companies in China. Foremost is Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), the world’s third-largest pulp and paper producer, which has become notorious for accusations of illegal logging from environmental groups such as Greenpeace, and which has now become the focus of criticism on Chinese social networks. Activists and bloggers are lobbying NGOs which are part of APP’s ‘Youth NGO Internship Programme’ to end co-operation with the company, accusing it of using the programme to greenwash over its poor reputation on deforestation. Within five days of the campaign, seven out of the 28 participating NGOs had backed out of the programme. (CSR Asia)
Africa
WWF and African Development Bank rally leaders to invest in Africa’s Natural Capital
The African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) have released a joint report on the state of the environment in Africa, and are calling on world leaders to invest in Africa’s natural capital. The report, entitled Green Infrastructure for Africa’s Ecological Security, was presented this month at a Rio+20 event and is intended to catalyse decision-makers to invest in Africa’s sustainable development. AfDB President, Donald Kaberuka, commented: “We must strengthen cooperation between leaders, across continents, who share a common interest in fostering economic transformation.” The report also offers examples, such as a water conservation programme in Kenya, of initiatives where natural capital is being preserved while social and economic development benefits rural populations. (WWF)
New international land deals database reveals rush to buy up Africa
Almost 5% of Africa's agricultural land has been bought or leased by investors since 2000, according to an international coalition of researchers and NGOs. Despite growing concern about the local impacts of so-called "land grabs", the lack of reliable data has previously made it difficult to pin down the real extent and nature of the global rush for land. But new data published by the Land Matrix Project provides details of 1,006 deals covering 70.2 million hectares across the world, including 56.2 million hectares in Africa – an area roughly the size of Kenya.
Governments eager for foreign investment have often gone to great lengths to advertise vast tracts of available "vacant" land in their countries, but the report finds little evidence of job creation or other benefits to local communities among the hundreds of largely export-oriented projects. Few large-scale projects have been established on the millions of hectares bought or leased for agricultural activities, with some deals likely to be purely strategic and speculative. Additionally, almost half of the agricultural deals studied showed the areas concerned were already being farmed before investors moved in. Competition between powerful foreign investors and local farming communities seems "inevitable", the report said. (The Guardian)
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