World needs a green and compassionate economy

Twenty years after the first earth summit was held in Rio de Janeiro representatives will gather once again in the Brazilian city to discuss sustainable development and agree on a path forward. As with most global processes, the Rio+20 summit will have to wear the burden of the past besides addressing new and emerging challenges. The most onerous of its objectives will be to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assess the progress to date and plugging the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of major summits on sustainable development.

The first Earth Summit did provide the much-needed impetus for action on a number of areas of environmental governance, including climate change, biodiversity and forestry through multilateral environmental agreements. Unfortunately, the recent history of multilateral action on environment-related issues indicates that the global community may well take a while to implement some of the more significant agreements in keeping with the mandate of the summit.

The submissions made by the member states during the run-up to the Rio+20 indicate that emerging economies — such as India, Brazil, China and South Africa — could play a critical role in the discussions that would take place. India, which assumes the chairmanship of BRICS in the summit to be held in March, has proposed an institutional framework for sustainable development based on principles of equity, inclusion and transparency. It must also press the developed countries to accept their common but differentiated responsibilities embodied in the Rio declaration. They must also recognise the ‘right to development’ and the overriding priority of poverty eradication and economic growth in developing countries. No doubt the world needs a green economy; but it also needs a compassionate economy.