Before Rio+20

According to the strategy of the United Nations outlined within the “Road to Rio+20” series, which promotes a “Development-led Green Economy”, “the aim is provoke discussion, advance new ideas, and provide inspiration for the future Conference whose result should be consensus on where we want to go in sustainable development and how developed and developing countries should work together to get there.”One of the core issues that make environmental agreements a 'political impossibility', is the difficulty of the market to account for the environmental costs (debits) and benefits (credits) that result from human activity, as they are globally dispersed. These costs and benefits, also called negative and positive externalities, constitute a 'market failure'.

Upon recognizing the climate and oceanic systems as an ‘Intangible Natural Heritage of Mankind’, it is possible to overcome the 'black hole' that our natural vital life support systems currently represent to the economy and juridic systems. However, in order to prevent this Common Heritage from being merely a statement of intentions, it will be necessary to reach an agreement upon a system that allows the measurement, comparison and valuation of these globally dispersed costs and benefits.

In order to reach, by 2020, the goal of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity adopted at the Conference on Biological Diversity (CBD, COP10), of reducing the human ecological footprint so that it remains within the Earth's biological carrying capacity, it is necessary to apply the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibility (CBDR). Establishing all the dimensions of these different responsibilities, implies that not only the debits, but the credits as well, are put on the negotiating table. In order to achieve this, a common metric must be used to obtain an EcoBalance. If we are able to tag each unit of this common metric with a price, we may find a platform of justice and reciprocity, in which to proceed with the settlement of accounts.

The use of common values and metric, may also help to overcome the stigmas of the different historic responsibilities preventing us from having a future, which is one of the core issues of the UN General Assembly Resolution 64/236.

With the EcoBalance Conference, Quercus and all the partners of the Earth Condominium project, intend to contribute and inspire the way to Rio+20, by proposing to add an operational dimension to the declaration of the 64th Annual United Nations Conference, which says that:“where the current economy aids inequity, destruction and greed, it should be replaced by an economy that cares for the human-earth community.”

We wish this conference to be a space for open debate on how to operate the accountancy of our relations, criss-crossing local and global scales, in order to answer the issues of reciprocity, trust and predictability, which Elinor Ostrom considers fundamental for anyone to be willing to change their behavior, in the context of collective action.

PROVISIONAL PROGRAM

MAY 02 | MORNING

1st PLENARY

A Natural, Intangible Heritage for Humanity Can global natural systems constitute a common, intangible heritage?

Preliminary questions for discussion:

Could the classification of our ocean and climate systems as Natural Heritage serve as an instrument to capture benefits and costs, felt through the whole of Humanity?
Can we consider that the functional dimension of these natural, global systems is intangible?
On allowing a deterritorialization and a quantification of this heritage, would such solution be appropriate to overcome the inadequacy of time and spatial scopes of Law in relation of these new global phenomenons?
Could the natural and immaterial heritage be an effective instrument to internalize both positive and negative externalities, and overcome the current market failure?
Does this heritage have limits? How can we measure them?

MAY 02 | AFTERNOON

2th PLENARY

A Metric for Nature

Is it possible to measure the positive and negative contributions to the global natural systems?

Preliminary questions for discussion:

Is it possible to find a common metric to serve as a reference pattern, thus allowing the accounting of each one’s different contributions towards that ‘Intangible Heritage’?
Is there a metric capable of dealing with the local and the global, thus allowing the reciprocity, trust and predictability, which are essential to reach an agreement?
Is the creation of this reference pattern an essential structural tool for a project that reduces the exploitation of natural systems and for an economy capable of recovering the Biocapacity of the planet?
Can the supply of environmental services be described by a single metric, which is equally used with regard to consumption?
Does the Global Footprint Network’s metric respond to these demands?

MAY 03 | MORNING

3rd PLENARY

A Value for Nature

Can we assign a monetary value to the costs and benefits that influence the global natural systems?

Preliminary questions for discussion:

Is it legitimate to attribute a price to nature?
If the environmental services are vital to humanity’s welfare, why is our economy incapable of providing them in adequate amounts, according to the current demand?
If these fluxes are vital services for humanity, their value will tend to be infinite and immensurable. However, should it, for that reason, continue to be equal to zero?
Should the payment for the environmental services be done through compensation mechanisms?
If each environmental service unit provides an equal benefit to all humanity, should the compensation be awarded evenly throughout the planet?
Which criteria should be used to obtain a value? Provision costs and non-usage?
Can the creation of a compensation system give origin to an economy of reposition and maintenance of the vital services?
Given the exchange and economic differences between countries, can a common value be an adequate tool to respond to the historic differences of consumption and global natural system usage?

MAY 03 | AFTERNOON

4th PLENARY

The EcoBalance and the Settlement of Accounts

A market or a platform for the settlement of accounts?

Preliminary questions for discussion:

Given the dispersion of the costs and benefits all over the planet, it is impossible to exclude any kind of beneficiary. Can a market be the regulating tool of these relations?
If in a given territory we calculate the debit and the credit of the global natural systems, from their difference we will obtain the EcoBalance in global hectares. Is it possible to build a platform to settle everyone’s accounts?
Is it possible to promote a new redistribution of income throughout the regions, compensating and promoting the positive environmental achievements, based on each region’s contributions to the country’s EcoBalance?
Are the EcoBalance and the settlement of accounts tools to overcome the 'failure of the market'?
What might be the effect of including the positive contributions on the negotiating table?
Can the settlement of accounts be a platform of justice and reciprocity?