Twenty years after the first Earth Summit – Rio 92, governments, international institutions and civil society representatives from all over the world will participate in the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (CNUSD or “Rio+20”). The main focus of the conference will be the transition into a global green economy encompassing the challenges to eradicate poverty and building a governance oriented towards sustainable development. As stated by the Secretary General of the Rio +20, Mr. Sha Zukang, the outcomes should reflect in political commitments, partnerships and concrete action on the ground.
After the debacle of Copenhagen, Rio +20 became the focus of convergence for an ambitious turning point to ‘reinvent the world’ and renew hope. After two decades of tortuous climate negotiations, Rio +20 is facing the dual challenge of debunking the fatality of the ‘Tragedy of Commons’ on one hand, and enabling a collective project of recovery of the planet's biocapacity on the other.
The UN General Assembly Resolution 64/236 acknowledges that: “People and nature are interdependent and that the global common goods – the air and the oceans, for example – are resources we all depend on. We encourage the communities, governments and other interested parties to manage and share the responsibility of decision-making regarding the protection and increase of the fruits of nature and society, capable of founding a green economy.”
The Earth Condominium project proposes that the Climatic and Oceanic systems are recognized as Intangible Natural Heritage of Mankind. Based on this global juridic support, it will not only be possible to build an accounting system of costs and benefits (a structural condition for an agreement to take place), but also allows for the creation of a compensation system for the people who secure and promote the availability of common benefits. This fulfills the conditions, not only to build an economy producing vital environmental services, but also to institutionalize the management of this common heritage, which strives to keep those systems within the safety margins that take into account the biophysical limits of the planet. The first contribution was a proposal, by Quercus and some of its partners, submitted to compilation document of the Rio+20 Summit. This proposal is available on the Summit’s website (available here).
