International Climate Finance & Policy

The  obscurity of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development is not a coincidence, but part of a process that is designed to deflate the importance of the negotiations and of the UN itself in order to facilitate private sector initiatives and the control of large transnational corporations.

In a future green economy, where the impetus for renewable energy is high, biofuels may only be one small, but growing element in a world-wide future energy mix. Nevertheless, the economic case for the intensive and mass-scale production of oil-seed plants and feed stocks s is legitimized under the green economy regime.

Every crisis can be an opportunity for addressing the root causes. Yet all too often the responses tend to be transactional in nature; rarely integrated or transformational. Such small adjustments seldom help us move towards solving the crisis itself. So far the Rio+20 negotiations on Sustainable Development talks have ignored the root causes and instead have focused on small changes.

A 2011 report from Climate Policy Institute (CPI) estimates that up to now 95 percent (or US$ 92.5 billion) of global financial flows earmarked for climate up were flowing toward renewable-intensive mitigation activities, while only five percent (or US$ 4.4 billion) were directed toward adaptation work under the current financial architecture.

Proponents of the feminist care perspective, in which the focus is on caring for people and nature, consider that the concept of the green economy (as it has been discussed so far) does not lead to fundamental change because it does not break with the dogma of growth or with the economy’s one-dimensional focus on the market and production.

Twenty years ago during the first Earth Summit, women organized a Women’s Action Agenda for a Healthy Planet. As their motto, they proclaimed: “Women do not want to be mainstreamed into a polluted stream: We want the stream to be clean, clear and healthy.”