The 19th session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development opened on May 2, 2011 and will continue until May 13th 2011. Fr. Seán McDonagh is sending us regular reports.
Is agreement possible?
Yesterday I gave an account of the intervention at the High Level Segment of the Irish Minister for the Environment Local Government and Community. Other interventions were also important. The Argentine minister spoke for the G-77/China. She stressed the importance of improving transport, especially in rural areas. She also called for the eradication of poverty. She challenged transnational corporations (TNCs) to apply the same environmental and health standards which they use in ‘developed’ countries to their mines and businesses in ‘developing’ countries as well. She repeated a common call for an inventory of hazardous waste and the development of bioremediations technologies. She called on ‘developed’ countries to give leadership in the implementation of the 10 Year Framework of Programmes (10YFP).
Work on the Preamble also continued on Wednesday. The delegates agreed to include paragraphs on implementing the measures and actions which are recommended at CSD 19. The text called on the delegates to ensure that these recommendations must be consistent with other international obligations, especially, the rules of the World Trade Organisation. They reaffirmed the call for a successful completion of the Doha Round of the WTO. I have heard that mantra so often in the past decade, and yet we are nowhere nearer completion of the Doha Round of the WTO.
The Production, Use and Final Destination of Chemicals in our Modern World
During the lunch break I attended a side-event called Body Burden where a number of people, including a woman golfer from Sweden, were tested by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) for persistent and hazardous chemicals that are in their system. It appears the chemicals which are used in the kitchen, the garden or on golf courses can have detrimental effect on human and environmental health.
In the pamphlet, World Ecology Report: Critical Issues in Health and Environment, the Director of Research at the Parkinson’s Disease Society (PDS), reported that there was “growing evidence” linking pesticides with Parkinson’s. A study in 2009 found that people who have Parkinson’s disease have higher levels of Lindane in their system than others. Lindane is a common ingredient in many pesticides The Lindane researchers said that the chemical could act as a “trigger” with people who are already prone to developing the disease. This is why in 2009, Lindane was added to the list of persistent chemicals which are banned under the Stockholm Convention.
Waste Management and Chemicals
A Ministerial Roundtable on Waste and the Management of Chemicals began at 3pm. Before the ministers gave their submissions, a number of experts in the field, spoke. The first was Jim Willis who is currently, the Director of US EPA’s Chemical Control Division in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics. Mr. Willis has been with the Agency for more than 20 years in various senior management positions. He also worked with the United Nations for a number of years. He said that his office reviews 1,500 new chemicals each year.
He began by saying that chemicals are a part of modern living, they contribute to human well-being and create jobs and economic growth. He claimed that most chemicals appear to be benign, but there is a small number of chemicals which have caused health problems for humans and the environment. Persistent bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals represent a group of substances that are not easily degraded, accumulate in organisms, and exhibit an acute or chronic toxicity.
The effects of PBTs range from cancer, endocrine disruption, reproductive dysfunction, behavioral abnormalities, birth defects, disturbance of the immune system, damage to the liver and nervous system. Among these dangerous chemical are organochlorine such as DDT, which was the first that was used on a large scale in the US and Europe. In Ireland in the 1950s, it was common to spread it on bed sheets in order to kill bedbugs. It is extremely persistent in the environment and in people’s bodies. Although DDT is no longer used in most ‘developed’ countries, it is still used to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes. He also mentioned polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which were widely used in transformers and other electrical appliances. Due to it toxicity and persistence, PCBs were banned in the US in 1979 and by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.
Willis spoke about the importance of Agenda 21, especially chapter 19, because it gave the green light for the establishment of important conventions which have dealt with chemicals. The Basel Convention, is an international treaty which is aimed at stopping the movement of hazardous waste across nation boundaries. It is specifically geared to prevent the transfer of waste from ‘developed’ to ‘developing’ countries. This convention predates the Rio Earth Summit. It was opened for signatures in March 1989 and came into force in May 1992.
During the earlier side event, one of the speakers claimed that a significant proportion of the 5 billion tonnes of e-waste which is generated each year is illegally dumped in ‘developing’ countries.
He also mentioned the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants which was designed to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It was signed in 2001, and came into effect in May 2004. He touched on the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Consent Procedures for Certain Hazardous Chemicals. It sets out to promote shared responsibility between those who manufacture chemicals and those who use them. It calls on exporters to put proper labels on hazardous chemicals and to give adequate directions on how they might be used safely. This Convention was completed in May 2001 and came into force in May 2004.
Another very important international initiative in the sound management of chemicals is the Inter-Organisation Programme for Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC). It was established in 1995 to strengthen co-operation and increase co-ordination in the area of the safe use of chemicals. It is now attempting to increase awareness about the potential benefits and hazards of nano technologies. The goal of all these treaties, conventions and co-operative initiatives is to minimize and eliminate the negative consequences of chemicals while benefitting from their use.
The second speaker Prasad Modak, Executive President Environmental Management Centre, Mumbai Area, India, insisted that the sound management of chemicals and waste must address the complete life cycle of the material. This must include the negative impact of the manufacturing process, potential problems which might emerge during its use by the consumer and what happens when product is finally discarded.
It is all very well to have conventions in place, and even to have the obligations recognised in national legislation, but unless there an increase in the capacity of ‘developing’ countries to enforce the laws, little will happen on the ground and the poor, especially poor farmers and their families will suffer. The need for financial support to develop this capacity was central to the statement by Denis Kellman, the Minister of the Environment, Water Resources Management and Drainage of the Government of Barbados. He was speaking on behalf of the Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). He drew attention to the difficulty ‘developing’ countries have in meeting the obligations of these conventions. “In this regard, we request that a comprehensive global financing strategy for chemicals be developed as a matter of priority to support implementation of these Chemicals Related Multilateral Environment Agreements (MEAs). The Private sector should be included in the architecture of such strategy.” This calls for more holistic waste policies, a clear regulatory framework and a commitment to transparency.
Is Zero Waste possible or is it Just a Slogan?
The concept of zero waste figured in some of the statements from the ministers, including Minister Phil Hogan. Zero waste must become the basic paradigm for the future at the local, national and international level. The paradigm shift means that levels of human well-being must now be achieved within the resource constraints of nature and its ability to absorb human-created waste. It means viewing waste primarily as a resource. It calls for the development of policies which promote waste prevention and, if that is not always possible, waste minimization.
As I walk to the UN Building each morning, I see mounds of waste in black bags piled up on the footpaths waiting to be collected and either placed in landfill or incinerated. What zero waste strategies are being designed to deal with this waste of resources? Here at the restaurants in the UN building, all the cutlery, plates, bottles, paper cups and plates are thrown into a bin after a single use. When and how is this going to change? Without concrete action on the ground, aspirational texts will lead to cynicism.
Mr. Illes, State Secretary for the Environment of the Republic of Hungary spoke on behalf of the EU. According to him more has to be done to increase resource efficiency and reduce waste, notably by increasing recycling/reuse and improving the design of the products. He also focused on sustainable water management, aimed to protect surface and ground water from contamination and minimize the energy used to produce the raw material. A good example of minimizing waste was the introduction of a plastic bag legacy in Ireland over a decade ago. According to Minister Hogan, this has led to a fall of nearly 95 percent on plastic litter. I remember the controversy from the NGO side of the argument, as I was Chair of Greenpeace Ireland at the time. We were repeatedly told by the then Minister for the Environment that it couldn’t be done, because the Irish consumer liked to have plastic bags for each item, and the retailers saw the plastic bag as a way of cutting down on pilfering.
He also brought up the topic of mine closure. In the view of the EU, governments must provide the legal and regulatory framework for mine closures, and most of all, have the institutional capacity to monitor and enforce their provisions. He also spoke of abandoned or ‘orphaned’ sites which often pose a huge danger to people, especially young people. In my years in the Philippines, I often saw children playing on or close to tailings. Mr Illis said that these need to be addressed through a “broad sustainable framework to be developed and applied worldwide to the remediation of orphan and abandoned mine sites, in such a way that these sites do not affect public health, safety and the environment, and correct, as far as possible, social impacts.”
Decoupling: natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth
There was also a lot of talk about decoupling natural resource use and environmental impacts from economic growth. The figures are frightening. By 2050, humanity could devour an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year. This is three times the current rate.
People in ‘developed’ countries consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita (ranging up to 40 or more tons per person in some ‘developed countries’). By comparison, the average person in India today consumes four tons per year.
With the growth of both population and prosperity, especially in developing countries, the prospect of much higher resource consumption levels is “far beyond what is likely sustainable” if realized at all given finite world resources, warns this report by UNEP’s International Resource Panel.
Already the world is running out of cheap and high quality sources of some essential materials such as oil, copper and gold, the supplies of which, in turn, require ever-rising volumes of fossil fuels and freshwater to produce. Improving the rate of resource productivity (“doing more with less”) faster than the economic growth rate is the notion behind “decoupling,” the panel says. Others claim that it will need to be teased out more thoroughly, with time lines factored in, because, at the moment, it sounds like alchemy.
That goal demands an urgent rethink of the links between resource use and economic prosperity, buttressed by a massive investment in technological, financial and social innovation to, at least freeze the per capita consumption in wealthy countries and help ‘developing’ nations follow a more sustainable path.
In his statement Mr. Phil Hogan, Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government stated, “that Ireland had a well established National Waste Prevention Programme. …. In developing our new waste policy I will be working with all key stakeholders to examine the role of existing and new producer responsibility schemes to drive waste reduction. I believe that significant opportunities, both environmental and economic can flow from better design and the substitution of less hazardous materials in the production of industrial and consumer goods.”
The second week begins …
The second week of the 19th Session of the UN Commission on Development began on Monday morning, May 9, 2011 at 10 am. During the Stock-Taking Plenary on Friday May 6th 2011, the chair, László Borbély, Environment Minister in Romania, congratulated the negotiators for their hard work during the first week. Under the stewardship of the chairs of the various Working Groups most of the texts on the five themes – mining, chemicals, transport, waste management and sustainable consumption and production – had been read once and, in a number of cases, twice. Progress had also been made on negotiating the Preamble, and on the 10 Year Framework of Programmes. There was significant agreement on the need for financial resources to underpin policy decisions and also in the way humans produce and consume the goods of the earth
Nevertheless, there was still a lot of disagreement, signified by the bracketed texts. The chair also noted that at the beginning of the week the document which he had proposed to the negotiators ran to 25 pages. By Friday, May 6th 2011, it had expanded to 55 pages. Some of these additions brought clarity to the negotiations, but some displayed an unwillingness to face up to the differences between the parties and an inability to negotiate compromises. A clear example of the tendency to take polar opposite positions has just arisen at meeting on Interlocking Issues which I am attending.(May 9th 2011. 5.22pm). The G-77/China proposed the inclusion of the sentence. “We resolve in taking further effective measures to remove obstacles to full realization of the rights of people living under colonial and foreign occupation in achieving sustainable development goal, particularly with regard to the CDS 19 themes.” The US, Canada, EU, Australia and Japan called for deletion of the sentence.
On the morning of May 6th 2011, Working Group I discussed the document on chemicals. The South African delegate, speaking for the G-77/China, suggested that a separate paragraph be devoted to attaining the Development Goals (MDGs). She also asked for the deletion of the text on the ‘green’ economy. Based on the intervention of G-77/China, Paraguay and Canada, an amendment was accepted which recognised that there was a shift in the production of chemicals from the ‘develop’ to ‘developing’ countries. It was acknowledged that these countries often do not have the human, technical and financial resources to deal effectively with the challenges of chemical management. The G-77/China called on multinational mining corporations in ‘developing’ countries to maintain cleaner and safer methods of operations. On the environmentally sound management of chemicals, the delegates agreed to drop references to the phrase “management of wastes” and use instead the phrase, “production, use and disposal” of chemicals.
Working Group 2 met on Friday May 6th 2011, to discuss the preamble under the direction of Abdelghani Merabet from Algeria. Economically rich countries such as the US, EU and Canada want all the Rio principles included in the text, not merely the one which calls for “common but differentiated responsibilities.” The US almost always opposes this principle, especially in climate negotiations. The US wants everyone to begin changing now, by lowering carbon emissions. It tends to forget that rich countries have built their prosperity on using fossil fuels and other minerals in a disproportionate way. While protecting the biosphere and crucial land and marine habitats, some way must be found to allow poor countries to ‘develop’ so they can provide basic needs for their people – such as food, medicine, clothing, education and welfare for vulnerable people. During the 12 years that I spent among the T’boli this was a constant concern. Like everyone else, the T’bolis have a right to adequate food, clothing, health and education. What the ‘developed’ world needs to do is to help them reach these goals without them having to travel down the carbon-intensive pathway.
Money matters are always close to the surface even in areas such as the Preamble. Reflecting the global financial retrenchment, Japan proposed that “new and additional” funds be changed to “adequate” funds. The G-77/China proposed a new text calling for the strengthening the role that Overseas Development Aid (ODA) plays in complimenting, leveraging and sustaining financing for development in developing countries. This, of course, has particular significance for the Republic of Ireland where ODA has been slashed dramatically since 2008. The development community will have to employ many different lobbying strategies if we are to succeed in persuading the government to honour its commitment to devote .07 percent of GNP to overseas development aid by 2012.
On waste, especially hazardous and e-waste moving across country boundaries, the US proposed deleting these specific terms and suggested the importance of adding language about adequate enforcement. Exporting waste illegally to ‘developing’ countries has become a vast international shadowy business, as companies try to make savings by allowing it to be sent to poor countries.
To people who have been involved in development issues for a few decades, discussions around moving hazardous waste brought back memories of the 1991 memo sent by Larry Summers on how poor countries could benefit, economically from importing hazardous waste. At the time Larry Summers was the chief economist of the World Bank. His memo suggested that trade in hazardous waste would help improve the economies of poor countries. When the memo was made public, Summers claimed that the sentence was laced with sarcasm and was not meant to be taken seriously. His gaffe did not seem to affect his career prospects. He went on to become the President of Harvard University and an economic advisor in both the Bush and Obama administration!
The US also wanted new language on fighting corruption, promoting science and technological solutions to problems and improving and replicating experiences which have been successful. At a meeting on Inter-linkages on Monday afternoon (May 9th 2011), the G77/China argued that any comments on corruption should also include corruption at the international level.
At the end of the Stock-Taking plenary, Chair László Borbély told the gathering that Vice-Chair Menez from the Philippines who had been chairing the Mining discussions would be leaving to attend another meeting. In his place the Asian Group endorsed Yvette Banzon Abalos, also from the Philippines. She chaired the Mining discussions this morning (May 9th 20011) and was very capable. On numerous occasions she challenged delegates from the US, Canada, Australia, EU and G-77/China to be more flexible in the positions which they have adopted to date. Because of her extensive knowledge of the complete text she was able to point out to the negotiators what they were wrangling over in one paragraph was actually included in another. The discussions this morning did not engage with the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent. It will be interesting to see how this particular conundrum will be solved.
At the end of the Stock-Taking on May 6th 2011, the chair informed the delegates that negotiating sessions would be scheduled each evening, beginning on Monday May 9th 2011. This, no doubt, will include marathon meetings after 6.30 pm.
Will the Vatican Finally Wake Up to the Dangers of Climate Change?
During the first week of May 2011, the Pontifical Academy of Science released a report on the potentially devastating impact of climate change. The Working Group which consisted of glaciologists, climate scientists, meteorologists, hydrologists, physicists, chemists, mountaineers and lawyers was co-chaired by Veerabhadran Ramanathan and Nobel laureate Paul Cruzen. Though initially their focus was on glaciers, the study was expanded to include the impact on climate change of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The widespread loss of glaciers, ice and snow on mountains in the tropical, temperate and polar regions is some of the clearest evidence we have for a change in the climate system which is taking place at a rapid pace across the globe. The authors call “on all people and the nations to recognise the serious and potentially irreversible impact of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. If we want justice and peace we must act to protect the habitat that sustains us.”
The Report examines how climate change will impinge on forests, wetlands, grasslands and, crucially, food production. The scientists claim that, because humans have pumped billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the past few decades, “human interference” has resulted in the highest concentration of carbon dioxide in the past 800,000.
This is not a minor problem. The authors say “we have entered a new geological epoch when the impact of mankind (humankind) became a major factor in environmental and climate changes.”
Nor can we put dealing with climate change on the long finger after we have sorted out our economic problems. The authors state that climate change is already under way and actions (to reduce carbon emissions) to mitigate its worst affects are a matter of social justice, especially for the poor. It ties these mitigating actions to the biblical idea of “stewardships” for the Earth. It is significant that the Report uses the language of the UN Convention of Climate Change which calls on everyone to act in a “spirit of common but differentiated responsibility.” This means that economically rich nations, such as the US, the EU, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, which built their prosperity on burning fossil fuel, must act first and make financial resources available to poor countries so that they can protect themselves from the consequences of climate change. The United States has consistently opposed this principle. It insists everyone must act together, especially the newly industrialised nations such as China, India and Brazil. Unfortunately, some of the recently elected legislators in the US are climate sceptics and are blocking any action at a Federal level to deal with it.
The Report makes three recommendations:
1. Reduce worldwide carbon dioxide quickly, using every means possible. All nations must change from carbon-based energy to renewable energy as quickly as possible.
2. Strengthen carbon sinks by protecting forests and replanting in degraded lands.
3. Make extensive provisions to help poor countries adapt to the sudden impact of climate change such as more severe weather patterns and rising sea-levels
Will anyone listen to these almost apocalyptic predictions? Will the Vatican itself listen? Climate change has not been on the priority list of the Holy See. The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church published as recently as 2004, has only one paragraph on climate change. The Encyclical Caritas in Veritate published in 2009, does not mention climate change. There was no statement from the Holy See at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at Cancun in December 2010.
Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, is constantly disparaging the science behind climate change. Given the seriousness of climate change as outlined in this study, will Vatican now caution him or sanction him in any way?
His colleague, Bishop William Morris of Toowoomba, was forced to resign by the Vatican for publicly asking questions about the future of ministry in the Catholic Church. In a pastoral letter in 2006, he asked how ministry in the Catholic Church can be re-envisioned, given the fact that vocations to the male, celibate priesthood have collapsed around the world. For raising this question, which is on the mind of countless other Catholics as priests grow older, he was forced to resign.
How Rome responds to Cardinal Pell’s climate change denying utterances will tell a lot about whether the Vatican is really serious about climate change.
Religion and Sustainable Development
In the past the ascetic tradition of various religions sometimes seemed to be motivated by a denial of the value of the world. Often salvation was presented as removing humans from the natural world, as if somehow matter itself was tainted, and could not in any way be associated with the world of the spirit. Manichaeism depicted the world as radically deficient and that even the human body is somehow evil. While many of the Fathers of the Church, including St. Augustine, opposed Manichaeism, they were not always enthusiastic about the natural world, or even the human body.
Some of the dominant strains for medieval Catholicism saw monasticism as a flight from the world (fuga mundi). In some places this spirituality descended into contempt for the world (contemptus mundi). This negative attitude towards the world received a new lease of life in the Catholic Church with the rise of Jansenism in the 17th century. Bishop Jansen (1585- 1638) was a Dutch Catholic theologian and a professor of theology at Louvain. In his posthumously published book, Augustine, he amplified Augustine’s negative attitude towards the world. Jansenism coloured and soured Catholic attitudes toward the world for 200 years. Such negativity was not confined to Catholicism. Despite his own deep appreciation of nature, the split between the realm of the ‘spiritual’ and the ‘material’ world was also found in many forms of Protestantism.
Very often in the past religions, particularly Christianity, were seen to be indifferent to the deteriorating plight of local ecosystems or the biosphere as a whole. Religions and churches upheld human rights and promoted social justice, often at great cost to individuals and churches, but their voice was seldom heard when it came to challenging the plundering of planet earth. Anthropocentric ethics promotes consumerism because it sees the rest of creation, not as closely linked to humanity, but as a resource which can be exploited for the benefit of humans.
The new ecological cosmological awareness which I wrote about yesterday must be brought into our liturgies and worship in order to integrate our work for justice and sustainability with our Christian faith. The sacraments offer an extraordinary opportunity to link respect for water, food, light and healing with the depths of the Christian tradition. Many religious prayer traditions have an ecological and cosmic dimension which can help the individual and community, move away from an almost narcissistic obsession with the human to become more aware of the deep bonding which is at the heart of all creation. In this way spirituality, rather than creating and confirming dualisms, can be an integrating force bringing together all aspects of our existence.
Today the ascetical dimension of the various religions must be based on our understanding of the finite nature of the earth. It is also clear that the present consumerist way of living cannot be sustained and is only made possible by massive injustice towards the poor of the world and by robbing future generations of their fair share of the resources of the planet. This is an area where religions must begin to highlight the moral dimension of how we relate to and treat the natural world. The Churches have much to learn from traditional cultures, and religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Even forms of Christianity, such as Celtic Christianity, have much to teach us about the intrinsic value of all creation.
The Christian churches have much to offer also. A spirit of sacrifice and concern for others is at the heart of the Christian faith. Christians believe that, in his life, death and resurrection, Jesus gave himself freely and unreservedly to others. Christians are encouraged to follow this pathway of self-less love in their response to people who are living at the margins of human society through poverty, disease or conflict. That love and service today must go beyond the human and embrace the suffering planet as well. In many ways this is a new call to show generosity for others, especially species facing extinction or habitats which have been ravaged.
Religions can also offer a space for discerning and celebrating hope, even when the situation seems bleak. One of the most effective ways for the Catholic Church to give leadership in the area of protecting the planet would be for Pope Benedict XVI to call a Synod for Creation. Each local Church could begin to reflect on creation in its own area and see how Christians could give leadership in moving towards a more sane and sustainable world. In preparing for such a Synod, everyone in the Church, young, old, farmers, industrial workers, bankers, scientists, fishermen, theologians, contemplatives, religious, teachers, doctors, liturgists, artists, poets and writers would be able to share their insights and wisdom. This would give a great impetus to the tasks of caring for the earth that cares for every creature. I believe it would also give new life and focus to the Catholic faith in our contemporary society.
Religion and Sustainability
During the past week I have shared the concerns which have surfaced here in New York at the 19th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD). The mountain we have to climb in terms of abandoning the unsustainable way of living of about 20 percent of the world’s population while, at the same time, meeting basic, food, clothing, education and health care needs of the poorest 25 percent of the world’s population, is immense and daunting.
The unsustainable trajectory of our current consumption and waste patterns was highlighted by Achim Steiner, the UN Secretary General and Executive Director of The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in the publication, PAVING THE WAY FOR SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION AND PRODUCTION; THE MARRAKECH PROCESS PROGRESS REPORT. According to him, the extraordinary progress of humankind within the past century is linked to unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. He wrote, “yearly consumption of biomass has more than tripled; use of fossil fuels, metals, minerals has increased 12 to 20 fold; and in respect to construction materials, consumption has grown 34 fold…. There is an urgent need for systematic change. This requires re-thinking current models of macro and micro economics and social development in order to catalyse a transition to far more sustainable and low carbon economies and economies.”
That is the big picture which ought to be guiding the negotiations during the first week of the 19th Session of the CSD, but, unfortunately, often old ways of thinking and vested interests, have prevailed to block real progress.
A number of speakers, especially from the NGOs side, did speak about the need for profound changes in our values, in our understanding of what constitutes the ‘good’ life and in our attitudes towards the natural world. This is also the sphere of religion but, to be honest, there was no discussion about the role that religion might play in promoting sustainable development at the CSD. At the end of the Review of Work session on Friday evening (May 6th 2011), the chairperson encouraged us to get plenty of sleep during the weekend, but never mentioned the fact that some of the participants might also attend religious services. Talk about airbrushing religion out of life!
Other institutes and scholars are beginning to focus on how religions might be mobilised to promote a more sustainable way of living on the planet, while at the same time alleviating the poverty which is the lot of over one billion people today. In a chapter in 2010 State of the World, on “Engaging Religions to Shape Worldviews,” Gary Gardner believes that even though, at present, there is only a small minority of environmental activists in most religions, religion “could become a major factor in forging new cultures of sustainability.” In the Christian tradition, he pointed to the work of Patriarch Bartholomew, the Patriarch of Constantinople who set up the organisation, Religion, Science and Environment (RSE) in 1996. This promotes dialogue between science and religion around environmental problems associated with oceans, seas and rivers.
Despite my criticisms of the lack of leadership of the Holy See in this crucial area, the Vatican is now engaging more seriously with the ecological crisis, though much more needs to be done. There are a number of ways in which religions can play a part in promoting ecological sustainability. The first, and most important role, is a prophetic one. This means challenging, at a global and local level, the current economic paradigm which underpins our unsustainable way of living. Examples of this can be found in recent papal teaching.
In Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All Creation, (January 1st 1990) the late Pope John Paul II wrote: “modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at its lifestyle. In many parts of the world society is given to instant gratification and consumerism while remaining indifferent to the damage which these cause. … Simplicity, moderation and discipline, as well as a spirit of sacrifice, must become a part of everyday life, lest all suffer the negative consequences of the careless habits of a few.”
Pope Benedict XVI in If you want peace, protect creation (World Day of Peace, January 1st 2010), writes that “technologically advanced societies must be prepared to encourage more sober lifestyles.” Further on, in No. 11 he writes, “it is becoming more and more evident that the issue of environmental degradation challenges us to examine our life-styles and the prevailing models of consumption and production, which are often unsustainable from a social, environmental and even economic point of view.”
All religions must challenge the greatest heresy in modern times which affects both religious and non-religious people. It states that that more and more consumption is the true, sure and only pathway to happiness and contentment.
The second thing churches or religions could do is to accompany people both at the local, national and international levels in the painful process of change from a non-sustainable to a sustainable way of life. Churches are well positioned to do this since they are present at the local, national and the international level. To achieve this they must educate their followers about local and global environmental issues. Each religious tradition has its own stories about the origins of the universe, the earth and humankind.
This generation, however, is privileged to have available to it an understanding about the emergence of the universe, our solar system, the formation of planet earth, the emergence and proliferation of life, culminating with the evolution of humankind in the past few million years. As a result, we have a new understanding of what it means to be human and how intimately we are connected with the 13.7 billion years which went into shaping the universe in such a way that it could support conscious life.
In the light of this new understanding, we are challenged to live in a way that does not undermine the well-being of the planet.
Particular religious traditions can enhance this understanding of our connectedness with all creation by grounding their own theologies of creation on this new cosmology. In the Judeo-Christian tradition we believe that the creative principle behind the emergence of the universe and humankind is best addressed in personal terms as a caring, loving Father.
Day 3: Understanding the Workings of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) claims that it offers the world one of the most open and participatory intergovernmental processes on sustainable issues. It believes that the original mandate given at the ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio in the Agenda 21 text was re-affirmed at the UN Summit on Sustainability in Johannesburg in 2002. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development called for CSD to meet in seven two-year “implementation cycles.” The CSD began to focus on a cluster of themes directly associated with the issue of sustainability on a two-year cycle. The present cluster of issues involves transport, chemicals, waste management, mining and a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Development and Consumption Patterns (10 YFP on SCP).
Preparatory process
The first year of the current cycle was 2010. It was devoted to developing the Secretary General’s report through structured contact with governments and civil society. It produced an 8,000 word review document which has been translated into all the UN official languages. The nine Major Groups represented at the CSD come from a broad spectrum of non-government organisations and other entities from civil society. These include women, youth, trade unions, farmers, indigenous peoples, NGOs, local authorities, science and technology, business and industry. Some of the organisations involved in choosing representatives include the ITUC (the International Trade Union Confederation), WEDO, Women in Development, WBCSD, (The World Business for Sustainable Development) and SIND, the organising partner for NGOs, (The Sustainable Development Issues Network). Non-government organisations have actively lobbied their governments to support enhanced participation of civil society in the CSD process.
Whereas most delegations have welcomed the presence of civil society, a number of countries, particularly from the G-77, would prefer a stricter regime of participation for non-government groups. As often happens in such cases, a certain amount of horse-trading takes place. In the working group, the EU, US and other countries expressed a preference for a text that allowed for the engagement of a broader input into the CSD process. Following a lengthy discussion on March 3rd 2011, a subparagraph was approved supporting the involvement of civil society and others in implementing the decisions which are taken. As part of the trade-off, the EU, US and Australia agreed to a request by the G-77/China to delete a paragraph listing various constituencies/stakeholders, such as disabled persons, consumer groups, educators, parliamentarians, media and the elderly.
This struggle for an effective place in the negotiations for the civil society is an on-going battle. At a meeting of representatives of the Major Groups on May 3rd 2011, some voice their concerns that civil society groups were being squeezed out of the negotiation process. Some of those who spoke encouraged civil society groups to lobby their respective governments and the chair of each topic groups to ensure that the space which civil society has won is not whittled away.
Implementation cycles
To return to the “implementation cycles”, towards the end of the first part of the two-year CSD cycle, governments, NGOs and Civil Society take part in a two-week long review session held at the UN headquarters in New York.
In the second year policy documents are developed by various elements on the UN system based on the Review Session. This becomes the basis for negotiation and is called the “Secretary General’s” document. Each of the 9 Major Groups also prepare policy documents. These documents must not exceed 1,000 words. The CSD deals with policy outcomes at two meetings. This is the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting which took place here in New York from the 28th to the 4th of March this year. The current meeting of the UN CSD from May 2nd to 13th 2011 is tasked with hammering out policy directives. This often means a line-by-line negotiation which can seems tedious, slow and often boring.
The procedure is as follows. One of the members asks for a change in the Secretary General’s in the text. He/she reads out it the change it would like to see in the text and sometimes, but not always, give a reason for the desired change. This phrase, sentence or paragraph is inserted in the text surrounded by brackets. The initials of the country that suggested the change is included. On the positive side, the process is inclusive and gives a voice to countries that are seldom given any prominence in world affairs.
The following snippets on some of the themes which being negotiated gives a feel for what is at stake in the present negotiations.
On transport: “There is, therefore, a need for urgent action, ranging, inter alia, from the promotion of integrated transport policies and plans, the accelerated phase-out of leaded gasoline, the promotion of voluntary guidelines and the development of partnerships at the national level for strengthening transport infrastructure, promoting and supporting the use of non-motorised transport and developing innovative mass transit schemes.”
The Text on Transport had the above additions by 8pm on May 3rd 2011
[Transportation is a central component of sustainable development and economic growth.-G77] Addressing the growing transport challenges is increasingly urgent. [Access to mobility is essential to achieve the MDGs. But growing motorized transport can have negative impacts on environment and human health.-EU]
On mining: “Minerals are essential for modern living, and mining is still the primary method of their extraction. To date, it appears that the main constraints to sustainability in the mining sector derive from the ever-increasing demand for mined resources, the consumption of resources (mostly energy and water) needed to extract and process metals, and the increasing pollution generated by the extraction process. This holds true for both large-scale, often multinational corporate, operations as well as for small-scale or artisanal ventures…….In the 20th century, the extraction of construction minerals grew by a factor of 34, while that of ores and industrial minerals by a factor of 27. This growth significantly outpaced a quadrupling of world population and a 24-fold increase in GDP.”
At a briefing on May 4th 2011, the contact person from the Group of Nine, reported that the US, Australia and Canada, wanted to delete from the text all the references to the environmental aspect of uranium mining. Another destructive call from the U.S, Canada and Australia was the demand that the phrase “free prior consent” be removed from the text. According to this interpretation, in a consultative process with groups who might be affected by mining, consultation does not involve the right to say no to an individual mining project. The G-77 and China did not have all their proposals to hand, but reserved the right to insert them at the second reading of the text.
There were a few positive changes. Switzerland wanted a phrase included in the text which would make it mandatory that the payment for a mining license which governments receive from a mining corporation would automatically be made public. The G-77 and the EU argued that there should be some formula in the text to stop transfer pricing by transnational corporation.
On hazardous waste: “Effective control of the generation, storage, treatment, recycling and reuse, transport, recovery and disposal of hazardous wastes is, according to Agenda 21, “of paramount importance for proper health, environmental protection and natural resource management, and sustainable development.”
No one person can follow all the intricacies of each negotiation, so each morning at 8.30am the Group of Nine meet and people who have been at different negotiations share their perception of what has been happening. They judge whether the changes to the texts are designed to improve the outcome for the sustainable living, or are they really concessions to the powerful vested interests of powerful transnational corporation who are intimately involved in mining, chemical, waste management and transport.
When it comes to “walking the walk” as well as “talking the talk,” many activities at the UN show that sustainability is not high on the priority list of those who administer the building. I noticed that all food and beverages are served in paper cups, paper plates and plastic cutlery. It was raining heavily on the morning of May 4th 2011. When I arrived at the building I was presented with a plastic bag and invited to put my wet umbrella into the bag. Once again, the bag was for a one-off use. As I walk each morning from 39th Street E. to the UN Building, I see scores of black bags full of rubbish outside almost every building, especially commercial one. There appears to be very little segregation of waste which would facilitate recycling.
It would appear that a culture of recycling and sustainability has not yet taken deep roots here right at the heart of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. The one major change which I see here in New York since I was a student in Washington in the early 1970s, is that the size of the average car is much smaller than it was then.
******
Understanding the Workings of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)
Fr. Seán McDonagh, SSC
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) claims that it offers the world one of the most open and participatory intergovernmental processes on sustainable issues. It believes that the original mandate given at the ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio in the Agenda 21 text was re-affirmed at the UN Summit on Sustainability in Johannesburg in 2002. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development called for CSD to meet in seven two-year “implementation cycles.” The CSD began to focus on a cluster of themes directly associated with the issue of sustainability on a two-year cycle. The present cluster of issues involves transport, chemicals, waste management, mining and a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Development and Consumption Patterns (10 YFP on SCP).
Preparatory process
The first year of the current cycle was 2010. It was devoted to developing the Secretary General’s report through structured contact with governments and civil society. It produced an 8,000 word review document which has been translated into all the UN official languages. The nine Major Groups represented at the CSD come from a broad spectrum of non-government organisations and other entities from civil society. These include women, youth, trade unions, farmers, indigenous peoples, NGOs, local authorities, science and technology, business and industry. Some of the organisations involved in choosing representatives include the ITUC (the International Trade Union Confederation), WEDO, Women in Development, WBCSD, (The World Business for Sustainable Development) and SIND, the organising partner for NGOs, (The Sustainable Development Issues Network). Non-government organisations have actively lobbied their governments to support enhanced participation of civil society in the CSD process.
Whereas most delegations have welcomed the presence of civil society, a number of countries, particularly from the G-77, would prefer a stricter regime of participation for non-government groups. As often happens in such cases, a certain amount of horse-trading takes place. In the working group, the EU, US and other countries expressed a preference for a text that allowed for the engagement of a broader input into the CSD process. Following a lengthy discussion on March 3rd 2011, a subparagraph was approved supporting the involvement of civil society and others in implementing the decisions which are taken. As part of the trade-off, the EU, US and Australia agreed to a request by the G-77/China to delete a paragraph listing various constituencies/stakeholders, such as disabled persons, consumer groups, educators, parliamentarians, media and the elderly.
This struggle for an effective place in the negotiations for the civil society is an on-going battle. At a meeting of representatives of the Major Groups on May 3rd 2011, some voice their concerns that civil society groups were being squeezed out of the negotiation process. Some of those who spoke encouraged civil society groups to lobby their respective governments and the chair of each topic groups to ensure that the space which civil society has won is not whittled away.
Implementation cycles
To return to the “implementation cycles”, towards the end of the first part of the two-year CSD cycle, governments, NGOs and Civil Society take part in a two-week long review session held at the UN headquarters in New York.
In the second year policy documents are developed by various elements on the UN system based on the Review Session. This becomes the basis for negotiation and is called the “Secretary General’s” document. Each of the 9 Major Groups also prepare policy documents. These documents must not exceed 1,000 words. The CSD deals with policy outcomes at two meetings. This is the Intergovernmental Preparatory Meeting which took place here in New York from the 28th to the 4th of March this year. The current meeting of the UN CSD from May 2nd to 13th 2011 is tasked with hammering out policy directives. This often means a line-by-line negotiation which can seems tedious, slow and often boring.
The procedure is as follows. One of the members asks for a change in the Secretary General’s in the text. He/she reads out it the change it would like to see in the text and sometimes, but not always, give a reason for the desired change. This phrase, sentence or paragraph is inserted in the text surrounded by brackets. The initials of the country that suggested the change is included. On the positive side, the process is inclusive and gives a voice to countries that are seldom given any prominence in world affairs.
The following snippets on some of the themes which being negotiated gives a feel for what is at stake in the present negotiations.
On transport: “There is, therefore, a need for urgent action, ranging, inter alia, from the promotion of integrated transport policies and plans, the accelerated phase-out of leaded gasoline, the promotion of voluntary guidelines and the development of partnerships at the national level for strengthening transport infrastructure, promoting and supporting the use of non-motorised transport and developing innovative mass transit schemes.”
The Text on Transport had the above additions by 8pm on May 3rd 2011
[Transportation is a central component of sustainable development and economic growth.-G77] Addressing the growing transport challenges is increasingly urgent. [Access to mobility is essential to achieve the MDGs. But growing motorized transport can have negative impacts on environment and human health.-EU]
On mining: “Minerals are essential for modern living, and mining is still the primary method of their extraction. To date, it appears that the main constraints to sustainability in the mining sector derive from the ever-increasing demand for mined resources, the consumption of resources (mostly energy and water) needed to extract and process metals, and the increasing pollution generated by the extraction process. This holds true for both large-scale, often multinational corporate, operations as well as for small-scale or artisanal ventures…….In the 20th century, the extraction of construction minerals grew by a factor of 34, while that of ores and industrial minerals by a factor of 27. This growth significantly outpaced a quadrupling of world population and a 24-fold increase in GDP.”
At a briefing on May 4th 2011, the contact person from the Group of Nine, reported that the US, Australia and Canada, wanted to delete from the text all the references to the environmental aspect of uranium mining. Another destructive call from the U.S, Canada and Australia was the demand that the phrase “free prior consent” be removed from the text. According to this interpretation, in a consultative process with groups who might be affected by mining, consultation does not involve the right to say no to an individual mining project. The G-77 and China did not have all their proposals to hand, but reserved the right to insert them at the second reading of the text.
There were a few positive changes. Switzerland wanted a phrase included in the text which would make it mandatory that the payment for a mining license which governments receive from a mining corporation would automatically be made public. The G-77 and the EU argued that there should be some formula in the text to stop transfer pricing by transnational corporation.
On hazardous waste: “Effective control of the generation, storage, treatment, recycling and reuse, transport, recovery and disposal of hazardous wastes is, according to Agenda 21, “of paramount importance for proper health, environmental protection and natural resource management, and sustainable development.”
No one person can follow all the intricacies of each negotiation, so each morning at 8.30am the Group of Nine meet and people who have been at different negotiations share their perception of what has been happening. They judge whether the changes to the texts are designed to improve the outcome for the sustainable living, or are they really concessions to the powerful vested interests of powerful transnational corporation who are intimately involved in mining, chemical, waste management and transport.
When it comes to “walking the walk” as well as “talking the talk,” many activities at the UN show that sustainability is not high on the priority list of those who administer the building. I noticed that all food and beverages are served in paper cups, paper plates and plastic cutlery. It was raining heavily on the morning of May 4th 2011. When I arrived at the building I was presented with a plastic bag and invited to put my wet umbrella into the bag. Once again, the bag was for a one-off use. As I walk each morning from 39th Street E. to the UN Building, I see scores of black bags full of rubbish outside almost every building, especially commercial one. There appears to be very little segregation of waste which would facilitate recycling.
It would appear that a culture of recycling and sustainability has not yet taken deep roots here right at the heart of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. The one major change which I see here in New York since I was a student in Washington in the early 1970s, is that the size of the average car is much smaller than it was then.
Day 2: Sustainable Development and The Limits to Growth Debate
In my article yesterday, I outlined some of the factors which led to the setting up of The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Even before that global event, a small group of thinkers was beginning to ask the question, “Are there upper limits to the Earth’s capacity to cope with human activity?”
One of the first books to systematically address the issue was called Limits to Growth. It was published in 1972. The book’s various chapters addressed a variety of economic, social and ecological issues from the perspective of sustainability, beginning with the notion of ‘overshoot.’ This term refers to whether human activity at this moment in time has overshot the capacity of the Earth and some vital ecosystems to renew.
Another chapter attempted to identify the main forces driving the dynamics of growth in a finite world. Other chapters looked at the impact of technology on sustainable development and considered how to move from the current unsustainable framework of development to a sustainable way of living on the planet.
Some commentators, particularly those from a neo-liberal economic background, challenged both the methodology used in the study and some of its predictions. When the price of oil fell back in the early 1980s, and the economic policies of both Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Regan in the U.S. seemed to produce both jobs and wealth, the limits to growth debate appeared to evaporate. For the next 15 years, especially after the demise of most centrally-planned Marxist economies in the late 1980s, the market was king!
Nevertheless, the main significance of the Limits to Growth was that it focused people’s attention on the fact that the earth is finite, and cannot sustain continuous depletion of resources and the irreversible destruction of ecosystems. It challenged one of the main assumptions of the economic-development model which had been in vogue almost since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the late 18th century by asking a crucial question: How the 5.6 billion people living on the planet in 1970 and the 9 billion who will be living on the planet in 2050, will be able to aspire to the present standards of affluence enjoyed by the majority of people living in the Minority world and by the elite and middle class in the Majority world without destroying the earth? In reality, some of the demands which humans are currently making on the planet have already breached important limits in the biosphere and done irreversible damage. The truth is that continuous spiralling demands are not possible in a finite world.
Thirty years later, the authors produced a book called Beyond the Limits which confirmed most of the predictions of the earlier book. It went on to warn that humanity had already overshot the limits of the Earth’s support capacity. Other researchers such as Mathis Wackernagel have developed new measures which calculate the impact humans have on the planet. He called it the ‘human ecological foot print.’ This was defined as the land area which would be required to produce the resources (grain, food, wood, fish and urban land) for 9 billion people and absorb the emissions from industry globally. According to this measure, global society had overshot our ecological footprint by 20 per cent by 1990 and humans have continued this upward curve ever since.
Unfortunately, few people in government, international agencies or in the economic disciplines have understood the real importance of these findings. In fact, governments have played their part in developing a consumerist culture by promoting economic growth above everything else. After the terrorist attacks on New York in September 2001, President George W Bush exhorted the American people to go out and shop to stimulate the economy. In 2009, after the near collapse of the global financial system, governments around the world poured $2.8 trillion in stimulus packages to stimulate consumption.
In fact, since the financial crisis of 2008, many commentators are hoping the world economy will move quickly out of recession into a prolonged period of economic growth through increased levels of production and consumption. Recently, I was listening to an economic commentator talking on the radio about the global economy and the possibilities for recovery. According to him, even though there were some signs of recovery, the global economy was still rather unhealthy. It would need sustained growth in 2010 and 2011, to return to full health. The economist had no understanding of the fact that this growth-oriented economy is plundering the natural world in an extensive and, now often irreversible, way. He wasn’t aware of the irony of using a health metaphor about an economic system which is impoverishing people and destroying the planet.
He also seems to be unaware of the fact that, although the government can bail out commercial banks which made extraordinarily irresponsible lending decisions, no one can bail out ecosystems which are irreversibly damaged. For example, if commercial pressure and lack of regulation facilitates the overfishing of blue-fin tuna in the North Atlantic to the point of their extinction, no amount of money can resurrect this fish.
Furthermore, those of us who have worked in economically poor countries know that economic growth is often at the expense of the poor who are paid a pittance for manufacturing the wide array of goods that we now use. Constant economic growth is also destroying the fruitfulness of the Earth.
*****
Day 1: The word “sustainability” became part of the vocabulary of many missionaries and development workers in the wake of the publication of deliberations of the UN Commission on Environment and Development in a book called “Our Common Future.” The book is often called the Brundtland Report after the name of the Chair of the Committee, Gro Harlem Brundtland who was Prime Minister of 1990 to 1996.
In a nutshell, Sustainable Development means meeting the needs of this generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
The Commission on Sustainable Development emerged from Agenda 21, the programme for action for sustainable development adopted in June 1992 by the United Nations Conference in June 1992 by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) also known as the “Rio Earth Summit.” Agenda 21 called for the creation of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), to ensure the effective follow-up of the UNCED. The CSD has 53 member states.
The CSD held its first substantive session in June 1993 and has convened every year since then at the UN Headquarters in New York. In the five years after 1993, the CSD systematically reviewed the implementation of all chapters of the Agenda 21.
One of the most significant meetings of the CSD took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in September 2002.
The 19th session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-19) was opened by H.E. Mr. Laszlo Borbely, Minister of Environment and Forest of Romania. He reminded the participants that CSD-19 is a policy session. Therefore, it needs to make policy decisions and to identify concrete measures to advance, in an integrated manner, the implementation of the agenda on a number of thematic issues. These include transport, chemicals, waste management, mining and the ten-year framework on sustainable consumption and production patterns.
He pointed out that the growing transport challenges, especially for those living in economically poor countries, is urgent.
The management of chemicals has important implications for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. He stated that the chemical industry contributes to job creation, improving living standards, eradication of poverty, improved health of humans, agricultural productivity and energy efficiency. While he cautioned that sound management of chemicals is needed to prevent adverse consequences for the environment and human health, he failed to mention that many chemical companies are economically more powerful than the majority of nation states. Chemical companies use this power to ensure that the vast majority of chemicals are not tested for their carcinogenic, endocrine-blocking or immune-compromising characteristics.
His comments on mining were equally bland and uncritical. The goal of mining, according to him was to “ maximise the positive economical impact of mining while minimising its negative environmental and social impacts, and reinforcing the capacity of producing countries to benefit from their natural resources in the long term.” He called for “a holistic approach with mining integrated in the sustainable development paradigm.”
I was one of the speakers at a side-event entitled, “Human Rights, The Environment and Mining: Perspectives from Peru,” organised by the Maryknoll Missionary Sisters. Among the speakers was Trinidad Carlos Serna, a Human Rights Lawyer from Peru. She told a very different story about the abuses of human and environmental rights which was facilitated by the Peruvian Government.
I shared my own research of pollution at La Oroya, a mining and smelting city in the Peruvian Andes, which is one of the 10 most polluted cities in the world. ((Cf. www.blacksmithinstitute.org/wwpp2007/finalReport2007.pdf The full report can be found at www.worstpolluted.com ).
Independent researchers found that Lead levels in children 6 months to 6 yrs: 3x above the concentration set by WHO; for three in every ten children in the old city of La Oroya, the concentration was often six and seven times above the WHO limits.
Cadmium: Nearly all the participants from La Oroya, had three times more cadmium in their blood than the average US citizen. Cadmium is a toxic element which can cause kidney problems, loss of bone density, lung cancer and prostate cancer in men.
Arsenic concentration in La Oroya, exceeded the amount found in an average U.S. sample.
Mercury levels in the blood in La Oroya were found to be three times the level of the average US sample.
Caesium in both places was four times the average US amount
Antimony: La Oroya had more than 30 times the amount in comparison with the average US citizen.
Mr. Laszlo Borbely seemed to be unaware or unwilling to address any of these issues about international mining corporations which are replicated in many countries in Asia, Central and Latin America and Africa. Not once in his talk or the subsequent presentations by Dr. Istvan Teplan, Senior Advisor of the Hungarian Secretary of State for the Environment, speaking on behalf of the European Union and its Members States, was there any serious statement about the power that mining corporations wield over both national governments or even groups such as the European Union.
As I said at the side-event on “Human Rights, the Environment and Mining: Perspectives from Peru,” it seemed at every speaker on the first day of the 19th Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development had taken an oath not to mention the role that the military and corporations play in the pollution and impoverishment of our world today..
Such institutional amnesia does not augur well that the 19th Session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development will deal effectively with the current ecological crisis.
