Playing with language

Yet another Earth Summit, and yet another declaration, but does it mean anything more than mouthing few platitudes in perfect prose? Perhaps not. The Rio+20 declaration is remarkable for its absence of figures, dates and targets. Yet, 190 governments seem to have spent the last 20 years in merely acknowledging, recognising and feeling concern about the world’s environmental crises, but not done anything about them. Whether it is climate change, biodiversity or combating desertification, technical insider negotiations have hijacked any action on the well-crafted treaties. 

And while everyone talks of ‘sustained growth’ no one seems to have noticed the incongruity of such a notion on a limited planet with limited resources. Coupling growth with ecology, bringing in another term to replace GDP, etc remain acknowledged concepts, but no more.

However, the UN’s Sustainable energy for all programme announced at the summit promises some action and results. More than 50 governments have launched new clean energy strategies, while private investors have pledged to invest more than $50 billion to reach the program’s goal of doubling renewable energy production and energy efficiency gains while providing all people access to modern electricity services by 2030. Around 1.3 billion people do not have access to electricity, while 2.7 billion rely on wood, dirty fuels or animal waste for cooking and heating. It’s anticipated that the “Sustainable Energy for All” initiative will ultimately benefit more than 1 billion people. Using locally available resources, decentralizing energy production, etc will have to play significant roles, as we have been saying here in our post. Only then will they contribute to SDGs (sustainable development goals).