From Webcam to World Leaders: A New Voice at Rio for the Facebook Generation

We can’t make the future with what we did in the past. I mean that is ridiculous, isn’t it? The past actions are what caused the problems in the first place. We need innovation and imagination.

So says 17-year old Brittany Trilford from New Zealand, winner of the Date With History video contest. She will join as many as 50,000 people, including over 110 heads of state, in Rio de Janeiro in less than a month to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the first historic Earth Summit. Her job? To remind our leaders why we hold these international gatherings: to get things done.

http://www.citizenglobal.com/embed/submit/scpvid

The summit comes at a time when our planet is facing unprecedented peril. We have exceeded three of our nine planetary boundaries; we are over-exploiting three-quarters of our fish stocks, like many other natural resources; and poverty continues to exact a grievous toll on the health and safety of billions of people. Clearly, the status quo is not working.

You Can’t Make Sushi with Lasagna: A Potluck Approach to Rio+20

Imagine you are trying to come up with the perfect recipe for a summer solstice party you’re hosting with 193 friends. The caveat: each guest insists on picking one ingredient to include in the final dish, and your guests are from 193 different countries. This is what you all might come up with:

It’s clear after two weeks at the UN that negotiators for the Rio+20 Earth Summit on June 20-22 shouldn’t quit their day jobs to become chefs. After splitting up the 200+ page document into two “manageable” chunks – basically, the “green economy” and everything else – and introducing a “chairs selected text” consolidating and removing repetitions, we then went back to line-by-line jockeying for inclusion of our favorite ingredients for success. The weeks of negotiation ended with one consensus: to meet one more week at the end of May.

Save money, save the climate: capturing methane waste from China’s booming natural gas sector

China is rapidly expanding production and use of cleaner burning natural gas in an attempt to wean itself off heavily polluting coal for electricity and heating. In the next five years, it plans to increase the share of natural gas from the current 4 percent of its total energy mix to 8 percent, more than doubling consumption from 110 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2010 to 260 bcm in 2015. Much of this new natural gas is expected to be unconventional shale gas: in the recent five-year plan for shale gas development, the Chinese government has set a target of developing 6.5 bcm of shale gas per year by 2015, ramping up to 60-100 bcm by 2020. (To put this into perspective, all of China’s natural gas production totaled 101 bcm in 2011.)

In the U.S., where shale gas production has become a major new source of natural gas in the last decade, reaching 140 bcm in 2010 (23% of all natural gas production), companies and regulators have developed best practices and technologies to streamline development, cut costs and protect the environment. These range from smart water-saving and reuse technologies to low-impact land reclamation. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently released a report, “Leaking Profits” (read the factsheet here) analyzing the top 10 opportunities to capture unintended and unnecessary methane emissions from oil and gas production, including shale gas, which if implemented could reduce methane emissions by more than 80% and generate $2 billion in additional revenue for the industry each year. These technologies have huge implications for the future of shale gas development in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Implementing all these technologies in the U.S. could save 10 million metric tons of methane (equivalent to at least 300 million tons of carbon dioxide) and generate $2 billion in additional revenue.

Challenge to Young Thought Leaders: Can You Silence the World at Rio+20 this June?

I’ve blogged extensively about why my generation has a crucial stake in the outcomes of Earth Summit 2012 this June (here, here, here…). If young people don’t raise our collective voices now, nations will spend the next two months arguing about abstractions that do little to move us toward a green economy and only serve to maintain the status quo. Now, I’m really excited to join the jury of the Win A Date With History video contest to bring the next generation’s concerns and creativity to the table.

Learn more and enter at: http://datewithhistory.com/

Turning Rio+20 into Kony 2012: Sustainable Development for the Facebook Generation

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you probably have seen or heard about the Kony 2012 video. People posted the video on Facebook and tweeted it to their followers, generating a staggering 40 million views in only two days. If we are to succeed at creating global awareness and engagement at Rio+20 in June, we need to embrace this power – of the internet and social media technologies – to ensure that Earth Summit 2012 is truly ground-breaking and transformative. We need to look ahead twenty years, to the possibility of linking the world’s young people for greater change – not back twenty years to the old way of doing things.

22 World Leaders’ Vision of Sustainable Development and Rio+20: Green Jobs and Youth in Resilient People, Resilient Planet

Following a stale round of Rio+20 negotiations last week, the long-awaited report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability released today provides the much-needed vision that has so far eluded negotiators. Rather than a bibliography of UN conference citations, or a laundry list of contributing factors, the panel’s vision – Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing – is direct and urgent: “The world is experiencing unprecedented prosperity, while the planet is under unprecedented stress. Inequality between the world’s rich and poor is growing, and more than a billion people still live in poverty.” Fifty-six recommendations for governments, private sector and civil society follow, many of which we have called for in our vision of the Rio+20 Earth Summit.

In many countries, there are rising waves of protest reflecting universal aspirations for a more prosperous, just and sustainable world.

The report authors – eight current or former heads of state and fourteen leading scientists and politicians – clearly are responding to youth around the world who are standing up for the Earth and their future.

Can the Earth Summit deliver an Action-oriented “Rio for twenty-somethings”?

Over the last three days here at the UN in New York City, I have heard a lot of criticisms of the “zero” draft outcome document for the June Rio+20 Earth Summit. Countries have passionately lambasted its lack of “vision”, “ambition”, “balance” and “action-oriented outcomes”; yet, few are able to propose anything beyond copy-and-pasting what has been going through the UN system for two generations. The Future We Want – the title of the zero draft itself reflecting the world’s best intentions to make this a “Rio for twenty-somethings” – has ballooned once again into a long litany of principles and vague, far-off goals. As Rio+20 may be the largest event in the history of the United Nations, these last five months prior to meeting in June need to be used more wisely.

Last November, NRDC, Road to Rio+20, SustainUS, We Canada, MobilizeUS and others helped deliver a Citizens Petition to the UN calling for “world leaders to recognize the urgency of the current situation” by “specific commitments to real actions from governments at all levels, corporations, communities and civil society groups.” Almost 7,000 global citizens made their voice heard in the petition, amplifying the voices of thousands more who have called out weak implementation, corruption, and lack of accountability of the current approach to sustainable development. The education and employment for the growing billions of young people are essential, as well as ensuring that the development patterns we inherit are sustainable.

What “action-oriented outcomes” will live up to this challenge? First, if you haven’t read it yet, our brief submission to the UN includes a set of around 40 achievable commitments that have short- to medium-term impacts.

Blue Skies for 2012: Cutting Air Pollution and Strengthening Information Transparency in China

Power plant emissions and air quality standards targeting some of the most harmful impacts of coal are coming under greater scrutiny starting this year in China. As of January 1, new thermal power plants have tougher restrictions on soot, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxides (92% of the current fleet is coal-fired). Mercury will be controlled starting in 2015. Small particulate matter and ozone standards will take effect nationwide in 2016; Beijing announced just last week that it would publicly release small particulate matter (PM 2.5) data before February of this year. Followed closely by the U.S. unveiling new toxics controls on power plants last month, both countries are in a “race to the top” for greater health and environmental protections for its citizens. This is a race we must all win.

On September 21, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) released new thermal power plant emission standards that will tighten controls on soot, sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). Newly constructed power plants are obligated to follow the standards which began on January 1, 2012. For existing power plants, the new standards will take effect starting July 1, 2014. Read NRDC’s unofficial English summary (regulations in Chinese). A side-by-side comparison with the European Union is below[1].

Air Pollutant Emission Standards Comparison Table — China and the European Union (EU) Units:  mg/m3

Green Jobs for Youth: Recommendations for the Earth Summit

Unemployment and underemployment are major concerns for youth around the world. The global economic downturn hit youth disproportionately hard, and even today, youth are three times more likely to be out of a job than adults. The Rio+20 Earth Summit has the potential to stimulate vast new investments in the green economy and generate good, green jobs for youth. Countries convening in New York City this week need to understand the urgency of this situation, and push for concrete Summit outcomes that will deliver what global youth really need.

In developing regions where numbers of youth looking for work are high – North Africa, the Middle East, South and East Asia – generating green jobs for youth should be a national imperative. In some countries, there are as many as four out-of-work youth for every adult (and statistics rarely reflect low-productivity employment, the “working poor,” an untold job crisis for youth in sub-Saharan Africa). Many of these same countries are projecting massive energy infrastructure growth, which could be green and employ youth given sensible policies (see figure).

Saving Ourselves from the Status Quo: Youth around the World Stand Up for the Earth and their Future

One block from my office in Washington, DC, young people frustrated by the lack of accountability and democracy in corporate America have gathered to demand and demonstrate change. I hear many voices of my generation as I walk through McPherson Square, but our concerns are unmistakable: unemployment, corruption, massive subsidies to established industries, corporate irresponsibility and—inherent in all these problems—environmental injustice on a global scale. Given the increasingly precarious world that we inhabit, there is much to do at next year’s Rio+20 Earth Summit on sustainable development. What is certain: The status quo is unsustainable, unacceptable, and we need to tell the United Nations so, in strong, clear words.

Young people everywhere are worried about what climate change will mean for their lives. They, more than anyone else, understand how urgently we must find solutions to our global environmental problems. Already the health and wellbeing of hundreds of millions of youth are at environmental risk. For example, up to 30 percent of young people in many African and Asian nations do not even have toilets and decent sanitation services, further compounding the threat of climate change-intensified diseases. The links between the health of our environment and the socio-economic challenges inspiring youth to take to the streets are clearer each day.

That’s why this week NRDC is stepping up its “Race to Rio” campaign.