Rio +20 blog http://www.foei.org daily 1 2012-06-08T09:22:40Z Rio without the principles http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-without-the-principles By Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International - Today marks the end of the Rio+20 Summit and instead of reflecting on the last week I find myself reflecting on the Rio of twenty years ago. What were middle-of-the-road ideas at the Rio Summit in 1992 are now considered radical. Governments this week have done all they can to retreat from what they agreed on then. In 1992 they wanted certain principles to be adopted by the whole world – principles so important they were given the name of the city in which they were born: the Rio principles. But now industrialised governments no longer want to mention the principles explicitly. For example, they don’t want to explicitly reaffirm one of the key Rio principles, that of common but differentiated responsibility. They no longer want to admit that Northern countries have been most responsible for the climate crisis and they definitely don’t want to commit to the responsibility of taking the lead in addressing it. The same is true of the precautionary principle, a perfectly sensible idea twenty years ago. They don’t want to reaffirm such a principle – and if they don’t reaffirm it they will take the opportunity to jump into irresponsible ventures and push for risky technologies to be introduced worldwide without any regulation. The gains of 1992 are slipping through our fingers. This is the danger of Rio+20. We don't see any progress. Twenty years have passed and we’re standing still.

 

Beyond the colour green

Friends of the Earth International loves the colour green… green forests, green grass, green is the colour of a healthy environment. But today, when you look around you everything is painted green – the oil corporations, the mining corporations, even the chemical corporations! 

 

Friends of the Earth International has rejected the concept of the Green Economy which is in the Rio+20 text, albeit without much clarity. We have looked beyond the colour green, just as we looked beyond the concept of sustainability when it was conceived 20 years ago. At the time, sustainability had three legs: economic prosperity, social equity and of course environmental protection. But a solid table needs four legs. Friends of the Earth International said back then, like we are saying again today, that there is a leg missing: it is the leg of democratic participation, the voice of the people. Rio+20 has an elongated economic leg that makes the sustainability table a rather wobbly affair. The economic leg as offered in the Green Economy opens up the path for the commodification of nature and poses the silent but critical problem of the proposal. UNEP’s analysis of the Green Economy agenda suggests that the only way to ensure sustainability is by getting the economy right. It claims that when you don't place a monetary value on something, you are not going to value it. In my view this is fundamentally wrong.

 

Butterflies don't send out invoices

Monetary value does not tell us how valuable something is or can be. In the UNEP analysis, there are some case studies that I have read with interest. One is about the 'environmental services' provided by pollinators: insects and birds that pollinate flowers and plants. Apparently worker bees are worth 190 billion dollars a year! Now we all know that when a bee or a butterfly pollinates a flower, it does not send you an invoice or issue a receipt. What this teaches us is that the Green Economy concept is artificial. It opens the earth up for speculation, financial speculation. Investors can gamble in every aspect of nature -- the air, the water, the soil. The Green Economy is a green gamble and the world and its people are at stake.

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-22T21:35:00Z News Item What has taken place at the People’s Summit http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/the-people2019s-summit-or-cupula-dos-povos By Dipti Bhatnagar, FoE Mozambique and Co-Coordinator of the FoEI Climate Justice & Energy Program - While the Rio+20 official UN Summit is fast turning into a dead space where world leaders are allowing the earth to hurtle down dangerous paths, on the other side of the city, the People’s Summit (called the Cúpula dos Povos in Portuguese) continues to be a vibrant, living space. Yesterday, 21st June, 2012, the Cúpula held its Assembly where they presented the solutions of the people, by the people to the multiple planetary crises.

 

Tens of thousands of people have been gathering at the Cúpula space since the 15th of June to decide for themselves on the ‘future we want’ rather that the broken promises provided by the official summit.

 

In the last few days, the People’s Summit has convened 5 major Plenaries on the Rights for Social and Environmental Justice; Defense of Common Goods, Against Commodification of Nature; Food Sovereignty; Energy and Extractives; and Labour for Another Economy and New Paradigms of Society.

 

In each of these plenaries, people gathered from all corners of the globe talked about structural causes of planetary crises, the false solutions being pushed by governments, corporations and the UN, the people’s solutions instead and the strategies for moving ahead. All these ideas then converged at 3 major Assemblies, such as the one yesterday on People’s Solutions. The last Grand Assembly will be held today at the People’s Space to mark the end of the People’s Summit and the beginning of a long process of building grassroots movements and struggles to protect the planet.

 

Friends of the Earth International has been involved since the beginning of the planning process of the People’s Summit, and continued to be intimately involved in not only the facilitation of the plenaries but also the systematization, meaning capturing the essence of all the speakers and preparing the documents including the declaration of the People’s Summit. 

 

I have been involved in the systematization of the Energy & Extractives Plenary. It was a privilege to listen to and be moved by the strength of the communities affected by polluting mines, fossil fuel extractions and processing, dams, land and resource grabs, and dirty Brazilian companies such as Vale in places such as Mozambique and Chile. As a companera (comrade sister) from Latin America said, this is a life-and-death situation for many communities across the globe. The accumulation of capital and unending greed of the 1% of the world is holding the other 99% hostage. I participated in the organisers’ process that synthesised the words of the people speaking in the Energy & Extractives plenary, and created our vision of our future.

 

Even though the official Rio+20 Summit is dead and has completely let down the planet and our future generations, FOEI feels invigorated by participating in the alive People’s Space and we vow to continue the struggles and the efforts to build the global environmental justice movement.

 

By Dipti Bhatnagar

Co-Coordinator, Climate Justice & Energy Program

Friends of the Earth International

Maputo, Mozambique

 

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-22T21:05:00Z News Item Rio+20 Summit Condemned as Sell Out of People and the Planet http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-20-summit-condemned-as-sell-out-of-people-and-the-planet Today we strongly condemn world leaders for selling out people and the planet in their Rio+20 declaration which falls way short of the action needed to tackle the planetary crisis we face, and does not include any of the real solutions demanded by the people at the alternative People’s Summit. [1] According to Friends of the Earth International, the lack of political will from governments is rooted in the undue influence of corporations over governments and UN institutions. But pressure from civil society groups and movements and developing countries prevented world leaders from agreeing an even worse Rio+20 declaration that would have taken the world further backwards than we were twenty years ago.

 

“Once again corporate polluters have held UN decision-making hostage to furthering their economic interests, at the expense of peoples wellbeing and the planet. But real solutions to the crises exist and were presented by the alternative Peoples Summit. They include economic justice, climate justice, and food sovereignty,“ said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

 

Friends of the Earth International has been a key player in the People’s Summit – an alternative space independent from the UN Summit supported by over 200 civil society groupings who have worked together over the past nine days to generate ideas for the change needed to tackle the crisis we face.

 

“Friends of the Earth International and our allied social movements will keep fighting the corporate capture of the UN which is stopping our governments from listening to the voices of the 99 percent of the people. These voices include not only the Peoples Summit voices here in Rio but also the voices of the Occupy and Indignados movements around the world,” said Lucia Ortiz, Economic Justice International Program Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

 

“Peoples power is the solution to the crises we are facing. The alternative People’s Summit in Rio was an example of peoples voices uniting to demand real solutions.  We need to build on our strengths and organise ourselves to resist corporate power, false solutions, and reclaim our democracies and UN decision-making” said Isaac Rojas, Friends of the Earth International coordinator of the Forest and Biodiversity Program,

 

Friends of the Earth International’s analsyis of key issues on the table in Rio:

 

GREEN ECONOMY

 

The European Union block tried to impose in Rio the corporate-driven green economy agenda --which is a front for our broken and unfair economic system and for selling out nature—as the main tool for achieving sustainable development. Civil society and developing countries managed to prevent this agenda from being adopted and partially stopped its imposition in the Rio declaration, allowing, for now, individual countries to continue define their own vision of what a truly fair and sustainable economy might look like.

 

Unfortunately the declaration still recognizes the green economy as an important tool and does not include any recognition that developed countries, whose unsustainable consumption patterns caused the bulk of our environmental problems, should take the lead on sustainable consumption and production. The Rio+20 declaration also fails to recognise that multinational corporations are a main cause of the multiple crises the world is facing.

 

 

THE RIO PRINCIPLES

 

The Rio+20 declaration reaffirms the so-called 'Rio Principles' first agreed at the 1992 Earth Summit but does not go any further.

 

The Rio+20 declaration ignores the need of the industrialised world to repay its ecological debt through provision of new and additional public finance and through technology transfer.

 

The Rio+20 declaration does not tackle the need to phase out fossil fuels through a just transition to clean and affordable community-controlled energy.

 

 

CORPORATE CAPTURE OF THE UN

 

The Rio+20 declaration includes a voluntary approach to sustainability reporting – something that was on the table 10 years ago and is wholly insufficient to address corporate abuses and crimes.

 

The Rio+20 declaration unfortunately states that governments should support initiatives including “promoting the contribution of the private sector” and the only reference to mobilizing public finance was made in connection to public-private partnerships.

 

The Rio+20 declaration does not include any of the steps raised in a statement issued on June 4 by Friends of the Earth International and other organisations and signed by more than 400 organisations.

 

The steps that should be taken include:

 

Limiting the privileged status that business currently has in official UN negotiations and policy-making; limits on the role of the “business and industry” major group; disclosure of existing relations and links between the UN with the private sector; a code of conduct for UN officials; a review of existing partnerships with corporates and trade associations, and a halt to entering into any new such partnerships; increased transparency around lobbying; and the establishment of a legally binding framework to hold companies accountable to environmental, human rights and labour rights law.

 

 

[1]  The solutions promoted at the People’s Summit include:

  • Small scale and local renewable energy production
  • Investing in energy efficiency
  • Shifting from export oriented large scale food production to food sovereignty to serve local food needs
  • Implementing a global financial transaction tax
  • Implementing internationally binding rules for companies and sanctions if they violate them
]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-22T21:00:00Z News Item Nnimmo Bassey at Democracy Now! http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/nnimmo-bassey-at-democracy-now Nnimmo Bassey, director of Environmental Rights Action / Friends of the Earth Nigeria and chair of Friends of the Earth International, appears at the news channel "Democracy Now!" Click here to watch.

 

Nnimmo says: "20 years from [the Rio convention in] 1992 we have backtracked rather than made advances.  ... The trend has been set right from Copenhagen in 2009, in Cancun and in Durban that these gatherings are not about really solutions, they are about how to open up business for corporations."

 

Nnimmo Bassey will meet Ban Ki-moon on Friday 22 June and will present a statement to him, initiated by Friends of the Earth International and nine other organisations and signed by more than 400 civil society organizations representing millions of people from around the world.

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-22T10:50:00Z News Item Watch the video! - Rio+20 : 50,000 demonstrate against the 'green economy' http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-20-50-000-demonstrate-against-the-green-economy While the official UN conference on sustainable development, known as Rio +20, opened this Wednesday, June 20, on the basis of a draft statement considered by many organizations as unacceptable, the initiators of the People's Summit organized a massive protest in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, which seems to attracted at least 50,000 people. For social and climate justice and against the financialization of nature.

Rio+20 : 50 000 personnes manifestent contre l'économie verte from Alter-Echos on Vimeo.

 

Lucia Ortiz, one of our spokespeople in Brazil speaks 1:48 minutes into this video with part of the Friends of the Earth International delegation in the background.


Nnimmo Bassey, chair of our organization, said "I was invited to be at Rio center with the heads of the states, but that chair was left empty, as this is the place to be, with peoples in the struggle in the street, here is where the power is!"

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-21T13:15:00Z News Item The energy for sustainability in the streets http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/the-energy-for-sustainability-in-the-streets By Nimmo Bassey, Chair, Friends of the Earth International - I could be sitting at the table with heads of state right now. But I had to make a choice. I had to choose to sit with them or to be in the streets standing alongside the people for whom sustainability really matters. So of course I am in the streets. We are here in Rio, in many ways a city of struggles, to strategize and build stronger foundations for struggles of the future. We cannot sit quietly and allow policy makers to hide themselves away somewhere and avoid making decisions. We must be loud, but more importantly, we must unblock stuffed ears. 

 

Friends of the Earth International is here not just to talk about what is going on in the negotiations but to strategize for tomorrow, for the future. When you look at the official process you could go home discouraged. But when we look at the energy in the streets, when we speak with the local people, and activists who come from all over the world, we are inspired to go back home and do more work. 

 

The People's Summit is filled with groups, social movements and communities that are impacted by the multiple crises in the world today: the climate crisis, the financial crisis, the food crisis – just to name a few. Here is the place to connect, to make linkages, to show solidarity with people who are suffering, it is the place to mobilize and to make plans. The work is in the grassroots. Mobilizing at the grassroots level, at the national and regional levels – that’s how we will make things happen globally. We believe that everyone must think and act locally to make change happen globally.

 

No patents on solutions

I think the major area where we can make a difference is to show that there are multiple solutions for the problems in the world today. There is not one solution that can be patented like the industry would like to have for the purpose of making money or for speculation – but we can build realities around the world and then enjoy our diversity. This is what we experience in Friends of the Earth, and this is the message we have for the world. 

 

We have to listen to those who are experiencing the impacts of the crises. People just want to live. The other day in Ipiringa, a community in Mage near Rio de Janeiro, I was confronted with the sight of mangroves destroyed by oil spill. The locals call it the mangroves cemetery. There I met with some fishermen and one said: look we want to protect the environment, we want to get rid of oil pipelines, we don't want the pollution. What we want is to fish, to live a life in dignity, and with respect, to make an income and take it to our family. We don't want to be fabulously rich, we just want to live. Friends of the Earth International carries this message to governments that people should be able to live, to live in dignity, to walk in solidarity and to create a more beautiful world for the future. This is the message of Rio. Besides the official negotiations we must pay attention to the struggles of ordinary people on the streets. Looked at from a distance, our struggles around the world may appear to be different. When we link hands, however, we see that our fight is one and the same. This is where sustainability resides: solidarity!

 

We need international coalitions like Friends of the Earth around to be able to look power in the face and tell the truth – that our political structures have been colonized by corporations like Shell, like Monsanto, and the rest of them. It’s time they get their dirty hands off our lives, and to regain our sovereignty over our political structures.

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-20T21:20:00Z News Item Rio+20 Declaration: A Gift to Corporate Polluters http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-20-declaration-a-gift-to-corporate-polluters The deal on the table at the Rio+20 Summit does nothing to address the environmental and social crises that the world is facing; it simply allows multinational corporations to continue exploiting people and the planet without restraint, according to Friends of the Earth International. “Politicians are spinning this outrageous deal as a victory but in fact it is nothing less than a disaster for the planet. This is a hollow deal and a gift to corporate polluters that hold UN decision-making hostage to further their economic interests,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

Multinational corporations made massive lobbying efforts in the past twenty years to ensure that the UN serves their own interests rather than promoting solutions that benefit the people, such as economic justice, climate justice and food sovereignty.

“The Rio+20 Summit obviously ignored the demands of the 50,000 people marching today from the alternative Peoples' Summit in Rio. Corporate interests prevailed. The deal even allows countries to sell out nature to multinational corporations while it does not include any measures to hold corporations accountable for their negative impacts,” said Lucia Ortiz, Economic Justice International Program Coordinator for Friends of the Earth International.

“Fortunately the so called ‘Green Economy’ does not have such a prominent role that corporations would have wished to see in the declaration, and this is a victory for all those opposed to the destructive Green Economy agenda promoted by industrialised countries and multinational corporations,” added Lucia Ortiz.

On June 22 Friends of the Earth International chair Nnimmo Bassey will meet UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and deliver a civil society statement denouncing the corporate domination of the United Nations.

More than 400 civil society organizations representing millions of people from around the world signed the statement -initiated by Friends of the Earth International and nine other organisations- which will be delivered in the sidelines of the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit.

Nnimmo Bassey will meet Ban Ki-moon in a meeting with the organisers of the alternative Peoples Summit in Rio, which includes Friends of the Earth International.
The statement is part of a Friends of the Earth International campaign 'Reclaim the UN' which included the launch on June 19 of a report exposing the increasing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN.

The report 'Reclaim the UN from Corporate Capture' presents a number of cases that clearly expose how UN policies and agencies are excessively influenced by the corporate sector, for instance oil company  Shell, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, the Coca Cola company, and the Chinese oil giant PetroChina.

A recent example of how the UN is unduly influenced by corporations is the ‘World Business and Development Award´ that the UNDP awarded on June 19 to food giant Nestlé. Nestlé has been accused of failing to act on child labour and slavery in its cocoa supply chain and of exploiting farmers in the dairy and coffee sectors for many years. The UN Global Compact never properly investigated these violations and took no steps to stop the alleged abuses by Nestlé. The award praises Nestlé enabling it to further greenwash its operations.

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-20T11:20:00Z News Item Rio+20: FoEI Chair Nnimmo Bassey to meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-20-friends-of-the-earth-international-to-meet-with-un-secretary-general-ban-ki-moon-stop-the-business-lobby-at-the-un On June 22 Friends of the Earth International chair Nnimmo Bassey will meet UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and deliver a civil society statement denouncing the corporate domination of the United Nations. More than 400 civil society organizations representing millions of people from around the world signed the statement -initiated by Friends of the Earth International and nine other organisations- which will be delivered in the sidelines of the UN Rio+20 Earth Summit.

 

Nnimmo Bassey will meet Ban Ki-moon in a meeting with the organisers of the alternative Peoples Summit in Rio, which include Friends of the Earth International.

 

The statement is part of a Friends of the Earth International campaign 'Reclaim the UN' which features the launch on June 19 of a new report exposing the increasing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN.

 

The report 'Reclaim the UN from Corporate Capture' presents a number of cases that clearly expose how UN policies and agencies are excessively influenced by the corporate sector, for instance oil company Shell, Dow Chemical, Monsanto, the Coca Cola company, and the Chinese oil giant PetroChina.

 

“Governmental positions have been increasingly hijacked by narrow corporate interests linked to polluting industries and business sectors seeking to profit from the environment, the climate and the financial crises,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

 

The report shows how this damages the ability of the UN to solve the various problems it is tasked with, removing its willingness to address the role of major corporations in causing many of the environmental, social, food and economic problems that the world faces today.

 

According to the new report, the positions of national governments in multilateral negotiations are increasingly influenced by business; business representatives dominate certain UN discussion spaces and some UN bodies; business groups are given a privileged advisory role; UN officials move back and forth to the private sector; and – last but not least - UN agencies are increasingly financially dependent on the private sector.

 

The new report also states that the UN has been working very closely with big business in developing and promoting the concept of ‘Green Economy’ which is selling out nature and people, and greenwashing a broken and unfair economic system at the expense of sustainable development.

 

“The fact that the UN is increasingly catering to the demands of corporate interests diverts the UN from tackling the root causes of environmental, social and economic problems. The UN and this Rio+20 Summit should listen to the demands of the alternative Peoples' Summit in Rio and take measures that will hold corporations accountable for their negative impacts,” said Lucia Ortiz, Economic Justice International Program Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

 

“The many examples of corporate capture are detrimental to the good work being done by many UN agencies and officials worldwide for the protection and empowerment of people. Allowing this to happen is putting both the UN’s and its member states’ credibility and integrity at risk. In fact this threatens to undermine the mission of the entire UN system and must be stopped, “ said Paul de Clerck, Corporates Campaign Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

 

WHAT THE CASE STUDIES SHOW :

  • The Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) initiative is being decided by an unaccountable, handpicked group, dominated by representatives of multinational corporations and fossil fuel interests, virtually without any involvement from or consultation with global civil society. In its current form, SE4All will spectacularly fail in its goal of tackling climate change and poverty.
  • Support for agriculture and food policy appears to be compromised by corporate links at the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It is promoting technologies that endanger peoples’ rights and access to food.
  • The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is increasingly driven by corporate actors interested in the financialization of nature and not by the need to conserve biodiversity.
  • Private sector interests are increasingly seeking ways to treat water as a tradable commodity while depriving people of their universal right to water and endangering access to water and sanitation for millions of people worldwide.
  • The UN Global Compact allows companies to boost their image by (mis-)using the UN flag for their own benefit, yet fails to deliver real improvements in business behaviour.
  • The UN has been working very closely with big business in developing and promoting the concept of ‘Green Economy’ which is selling out nature and people, and greenwashing a broken and unfair economic system at the expense of sustainable development.

 

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-19T13:20:00Z News Item Watch the video! - Corporate lobby at the Rio summit: UN Global Compact http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/corporate-lobby-at-the-rio-summit-un-global-compact Paul de Clerck, Corporates Campaign Coordinator with Friends of the Earth International, explains how business lobby groups work to influence the Rio+20 Summit and use the UN to greenwash unsustainable business practices. ]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-19T02:10:00Z News Item Watch the video! - Corporate lobby at the UN: the case of Shell http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/corporate-lobby-at-the-un-the-case-of-shell Interview with Geert Ritsema, International Campaign Coordinator with Friends of the Earth Netherlands at the Rio+20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 17, 2012 ]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-18T14:10:00Z News Item Join today's Twitterstorm! http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/join-todays-twitterstorm Call on world leaders to stop public handouts for dirty energy! Millions of people around the world are already losing their lives and livelihoods to climate change and global emissions are rising when the world desperately needs them to be falling.  Meanwhile our governments are handing over $1 trillion dollars every year to the industry at the centre of the problem. Climate criminal Shell made €25 billion in profits last year, showing us that the dirty industry at the centre of the climate crisis shouldn’t be getting any more taxpayers money.

 

The fossil fuel industry is a core driver of the climate crisis, and its destructive activities are devastating communities and the environment in the process.  We need an urgent transition to decentralized, community owned and controlled renewable energy to tackle the climate crisis, with a just transition for the workers and communities who rely on fossil fuels for their livelihoods.  Cutting public subsidies to dirty energy companies and redirecting that money to energy alternatives and a just transition is a first step in the transformation we need.  That’s why FoEI is joining in the ‘twitterstorm’ today, Monday 18 June, organised by 350.org, an international movement mobilising against climate change to call on world leaders to end public hand-outs to fossil fuels producers.

The 24-hour “Twitterstorm” is a massive international online action to increase pressure on world leaders to cut nearly $1 trillion in fossil fuel subsidies at the upcoming Rio+20 Earth Summit. For 24 hours between June 18th and 19th, as world leaders gather at the G20 summit and prepare for Rio+20, Friends of the Earth International is joining with 350.org, Greenpeace International and hundreds of thousands of people to tweet with the same hashtag — #EndFossilFuelSubsidies — at celebrities and politicians, flooding the popular social network with our demand to stop public handouts to dirty energy companies.

 

Join us! For more info on how to get involved and sample tweets visit: http://endfossilfuelsubsidies.org/twitterstorm/

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff Rio+20 2012-06-18T11:05:00Z News Item Rio+20 summit under corporations' undue influence http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-20-summit-under-corporations-undue-influence One the eve of the Rio+20 United Nations Earth Summit on June 20-22, Friends of the Earth International warns world leaders that multinational corporations such as oil giant Shell have an undue influence over the Rio+20 Earth Summit. According to a briefing released today by Friends of the Earth Netherlands, the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell is influencing the Rio+20 Summit thanks to senior company representatives in several corporate lobbying groups active in the Rio+20 negotiations, including: the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association, the UN Global Compact, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and the International Emissions Trading Association

"It is not acceptable that companies like Shell who cause massive pollution and human rights abuses should be in the driving seat of processes for sustainable development. That is a recipe for disaster for our planet and peoples. Corporate polluters should not help making laws, they should face the law,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.

“Thanks to corporate lobby groups, Shell bought its way into UN decision-making.  This is a major problem because the sustainable development the world needs cannot be delivered by corporate polluters like Shell,” said Geert Ritsema of Friends of the Earth Netherlands.

“The more corporations influence governments and the UN, the less corporate crimes are exposed, and the less peoples’ voices are taken into account at the UN,” said lucia Ortiz, Economic Justice International Program Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.

A Friends of the Earth Mozambique activitst who exposed Brazil mining giant Vale in Mozambique, Jeremias Vunjanhe, was denied entry in Brazil on June 13 but is now expected to re-enter Brazil today, following an uproar about his case by civil society organisations meeting at the alternative Peoples Forum in Rio, and a promise by the Brazilian government that it would let him in the country to participate in the Rio+20 Summit and the Peoples Summit.

On June 19 Friends of the Earth International will launch a new report exposing the increasing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN.

On June 5, 2012, Friends of the Earth International started a campaign urging the UN to limit the excessive influence of multinational corporations on UN decision-making processes, and address this major cause of environmental injustice.

The campaign includes an online public petition asking UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to take the steps needed to reclaim the UN from corporate capture.

More than 372 civil society organizations representing millions of people from around the world signed a statement - initiated by Friends of the Earth International and nine other organisations - denouncing the corporate domination of the United Nations.

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff Rio+20 2012-06-17T22:00:00Z News Item Watch the video! - Financialization of nature http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/financialization-of-nature Short animated film about the takeover of nature by financial markets and the real alternatives coming up from the civil society.

Financialization of Nature from ATTAC.TV on Vimeo.

 

An initiative of SOMO, European Attac Network, Food&Water Europe, Friends of Earth, Amis de la Terre, Carbon Trade Watch, WEED, Ecologistas en Acción, Aitec and Campagna per la riforma della Banca Mondiale.
Produced by La Antena and AttacTV. Animated by desarme s.c.

]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-16T14:45:00Z News Item Rio+20 summit must listen to People's Summit http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-20-summit-must-listen-to-peoples-summit While world leaders and the business sector gather for the Rio+20 Earth Summit due to take place here on June 20-22, Friends of the Earth International campaigners are gathering with social movements from around the world at an alternative Summit focused on human rights and environmental justice on 15-23 June. “World leaders meeting at  the Rio+20 Summit should listen to the demands of the alternative Peoples' Summit in Rio to prove that the UN's decision making process and our governments take into account the greater public interest before profit,” said Lucia Ortiz, Economic Justice International Program Coordinator at Friends of the Earth International.
 
“The Rio+20 Summit should not promote the 'Green Economy' agenda, which is selling out nature and people, and greenwashing an unjust and unsustainable economic system,” added Ortiz.
 
The People’s Summit is part of a historical process of accumulation and convergence of local, regional and global struggles. It is a space of social movements and orgnizations that will have self-organized activities, Convergence Plenaries and the People’s Assembly.
 
“The People and our governments must reclaim the UN's decision making processes from corporate interests. They must prioritise real solutions that transform our economies and deliver food sovereignty, climate justice and economic justice for all,” said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International.
 
“Friends of the Earth International is actively part of the Peoples Summit process and calls on world leaders to listen to the voices of the people, and to put into place peoples solutions such as agrarian reform and food sovereignty“ said Martin Drago, Friends of the Earth International Food Sovereignty program coordinator.
 
The Peoples Summit is a process bringing together social movements and organizations from all over the world, to call for the defense of life and commons, social and environmental justice, against commodification of nature and the 'Green Economy'.
 
“ The Peoples Summit calls for mobilizations to defend the commons and the policies that defend people’s interests and rights before corporate profits,” said Isaac Rojas. “Nature is not for sale,” he added.
]]> No publisher Joukje Kolff 2012-06-15T22:00:00Z News Item Rio Summit participant denied entry in Brazil http://www.foei.org/en/what-we-do/rio-20/blog-posts/rio-summit-participant-denied-entry-in-brazil A participant of the UN Summit in Rio de Janeiero was denied entry into Brazil by the Brazilian authorities. A journalist and member of Friends of the Earth Mozambique, Jeremias Vunjanhe, was denied entry at the airport of Rio de Janeiro on June 13, despite carrying a valid visa and a valid accreditation at the UN Rio+20 Summit as part of Friends of the Earth International delegation.

 

Mr Vunjanhe was expected to expose the negative impacts of Brazilian mining corporation Vale at the Peoples Summit, a parallel event of the UN Rio+20 Summit. Vale is one of the official sponsors of the UN Summit. The activist did not get any explanation as to why he was sent back to Mozambique.

 

Friends of the Earth Mozambique supported hundreds of Mozambican families which were resettled by Brazilian company Vale in the Moatize district and carried out demonstrations in recent months to reclaim their rights.

 

While Friends of the Earth International has received a commitment from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs that Jeremias will be brought back to Rio this Monday, we demand a public explanation and excuses from the Brazilian government.

 

In Rio de Janeiro, Friends of the Earth International is campaigning against the growing influence of big corporations and business lobby groups within the UN, through government delegations, and in multilateral negotiations. We are requesting a clear public statement from the UN that its priority is to serve the public interest and not business interests, and a commitment to take concrete steps that will limit industry's influence in UN decision-making processes.

 

We believe that as a host country Brazil should ensure that the freedom of expression prevails over the interests of corporations and guarantee the right of people to protest.
 

ADDENDUM
 
FoE Mozambique member Jeremias Vunjanhe, who was denied entry in Brazil last week, is back in Rio! He was welcomed by a crowd of activists at the airport, and joined the FoEI delegation in the city late on Monday evening, 18 June.
]]> No publisher Maarten van den Berg Rio+20 2012-06-14T22:25:00Z News Item