Rio+20 and forlorn hopes

"On the approaching 20th anniversary of the 1992 "Earth Summit" in mid-June expectations for the Rio+20 meeting are understandably low, given the recent history of climate change meetings in Copenhagen and Durban. The reasons for this failure are also clear: while a "global deal" to reduce global carbon emissions will clearly benefit everyone in the long run, such an agreement appears to fly in the face of countries' (especially developing countries) short-term economic growth goals." so writes Robert Costanza

This of course was forecasted by the Socialist Party at the time and therefore comes as no unexpected surprise. You name it and the delegates at Rio have reneged on it—climate, deserts, bio-diversity, even aid for the developing world.

The professor of sustainability and the director of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University in Oregon, continues "our view of the world will have to change. Our fundamental goals will have to change from an unsustainable emphasis on economic growth to a much broader vision of human well-being that acknowledges our dependence on nature and on each other...We are going to need an economics that respects planetary boundaries and that recognises the dependence of human well-being on social relations and fairness, and that recognises that the ultimate goal is real, sustainable human well-being - not merely growth of material consumption. This new economics recognises that the economy is embedded in a society and culture that are thmselves embedded in an ecological life-support system, and that the economy cannot grow forever on our finite planet."

It is a view fully endorsed by the Socialist Party and one that we have been promoting since our foundation in 1904.

Paul Raskin, the founding director of the Tellus Institute, has said: "Contrary to the conventional wisdom, it is business as usual that is the utopian fantasy; forging a new vision is the pragmatic necessity." But we do have a choice about how to make the transition and what the new state of the world will be. We can engage in a global dialogue to envision 'the future we want', the theme of Rio+20, and then devise an adaptive strategy to get us there - or we can allow the current system to collapse and rebuild from a much worse starting point."

Again, we too in the Socialist Party have been advocating such revolutionary aspirations in our attitudes towards how we produce, distribute and consume the wealth of the the natural world. What the tragedy and travesty really for ourselves is that researchers such as Costanza and Raskin are still constrained by the limitations of their own utopianism - of refusing to acknowledge that the change required for the future is to abolish capitalism and all its trappings, and they instead continue to futilely seeking solutions within the buying/selling exchange economy of today. Theirs is a familiar story - well-meaning individuals seeking well-intended legislation when only by replacing the profit system with truly democratic organisation can give the environment the priority it deserves.

Until Rio+20 commits itself to the establishment of socialism and not hold out hope for capitalist palliatives, the Socialist Party confidently predicts that spokes-persons for Rio+40 will be voicing the same platitudes as Costanza and Raskin. That is, of course, if humanity is still around to such discourses! Where we do a 100% agree, is upon the urgency of tackling the issue but repeating the same mistakes does not take us any closer to a successful resolution.

See also
Earth Summits - A Record of Failure