Phl urged to lead change at Earth Summit 2012

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippines should step up and lead Asia and the rest of the developing world in pushing for meaningful changes during the upcoming Earth Summit in Brazil next year.

Pierre Calame, director of the French humanitarian group Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation, said the Asian bloc should challenge the world’s richest nations to face up to past failures at the Rio+20 Earth Summit in June 2012.

The Philippines is one of the forerunners of sustainable development in Asia. Several months after the first Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the government created the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD) to review and ensure the country’s implementation of the commitments to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development.

This made the Philippines one of the pioneers in the Asia-Pacific region in establishing a multi-stakeholder body that will ensure the operationalization of sustainable development as embodied in Agenda 21.

Calame pointed out that during the 1992 summit, there was an increased awareness that “humanity had the potential to destroy the planet – not by war – but simply through our way of life.”

But since then, he noted that promises to change were not kept, especially by the so-called “big shots.”

“The first decennium of the 21st century has witnessed repeated failures. Big shots don’t like to know they failed but ironically, they are the least likely to cooperate,” he added.

Thus, Calame said Rio+20 is a “historical opportunity not to be missed.”

“We need to change the agenda of the 2012 summit. We need to look at how we can transform failure into success.”

He stressed that the summit needs to look beyond the current agenda of a “green economy” and consider overhauling the entire sustainable development model.

Instead, Calame said Rio+20 needs to look at developing a “charter of responsibility” to recognize the world’s interdependence.