Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 2013, volume 31, pages 1099 – 1114
doi:10.1068/c12298j
Curtain down and nothing settled: global sustainability governance after the ‘Rio+20’ Earth Summit Frank Biermann Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1087, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Lund University, Sweden; e-mail: frank.biermann@vu.nl Received 7 November 2012; in revised form 20 March 2013 Abstract. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, was probably the largest event in a long series of megasummits on environmental protection and sustainable development. Roughly 44 000 participants descended on Rio de Janeiro to take part in ten days of preparatory committee meetings, informal consultations, side events, and the actual conference. Yet despite this unprecedented high attendance by participants from governments and civil society, the outcome of the conference is less than many had hoped for. In this paper I review the outcomes of the 2012 Rio conference in detail, with a special focus on its contributions towards the reform of the institutional framework for sustainable development. Following this review, I discuss the way ahead and options for structural reform to restrengthen earth system governance. Keywords: sustainable development, Rio+20, governance, United Nations
“ You’re thinking, aren’t you, that this is no right Conclusion to the play you’ve seen tonight? After a tale, exotic, fabulous, A nasty ending has slipped up on us. We feel deflated too. We too are nettled To see the curtain down and nothing settled. How could a better ending be arranged? Could one change people? Can the world be changed? Would new gods do the trick? Will atheism? Moral rearmament? Materialism? It is for you to find a way, my friends, To help good men arrive at happy ends. You write the happy ending to the play! There must, there must, there’s got to be a way!” Bertolt Brecht The Good Person from Szechwan (translated by Eric Bentley) 1 Introduction American industrialist Henry Ford reportedly claimed that it is often our failures that are in the end more successful than our successes. Hopefully, this holds as well for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which was held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro. The official outcomes of the conference were welcomed by most observers simply for the fact that a breakdown of negotiations had been prevented. Yet, as Zhou Enlai quipped over the French Revolution, it is possibly too early to fully assess the long-term impacts of what happened in Rio de Janeiro.