On the eve of Rio+20, the Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America has asked several of its partners from civil society to reflect in short commentaries about some of the linkages and synergies between gender equity and key issue areas of sustainable development.
Since the first UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, we've seen a worsening of all important ecological trends, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and scarcity of resources. This essay describes a policy of less and wealth measured in "just enough" to allow a decent life without poverty for all.
In the past 10 years, Brazil has undeniably gone through a remarkable process of transformation. The international community sees Brazil as success story. This collection of articles addresses the discrepancy between the perception of Brazil abroad and at home where NGOs and social movements have been criticizing the Brazilian development model.
At Rio+20, the concept of the "green economy" focuses on industrial production from biomass as one way to overcome fossil fuel dependency. The push for a bio-based economy comes with a call for market-based mechanisms for the financialization of the Earth’s natural processes, re-branded as ‘ecosystem services’, which also encourage land and water grabs.
The urgent need to address climate change, the concerns of depleting fossil fuel reserves, volatile global oil prices and continued economic crisis amongst other reasons have put energy at the center of public policy debates. While the discussions are centered around addressing energy security, often focused primarily around electricity generation, the more immediate energy crisis is in creating equitable energy access and eradicating energy poverty.
In a time of economic hardship, dangerous climate change, and growing demand for reliable and cleaner sources of energy, global fossil fuel subsidies for production and consumption remain staggeringly high; however, momentum for subsidy reform is growing internationally. Greater transparency and equity need to be at the heart of such reforms, argues this report.
