Latest draft of Rio+20 negotiating document leaked – and it’s not looking good

With just a few days to go until the start of the Rio Earth Summit, there is still very little certainty about what exactly will happen. But early indications are not great. Back in January, an initial ‘Zero Draft’ of the outcome document was publicised under the title The Future We Want. While this document outlined some generally positive sentiments, we at the World Development Movement found that it was severely lacking in substance.

Campaigners from Food and Water Watch protest against the finanicalisation of natural resources

Crucially, it didn’t define what was meant by a ‘green economy’, which is one of the main themes for Rio, leaving it in danger of being hijacked by corporate interests. This could mean the privatisation of commonly owned aspects of the natural world and the creation of new markets in ecosystem ‘services’.

Last week, the Guardian released the latest version of the document, dated 2 June when the last round of negotiations ended. For the most part, it is not looking too promising. The mainstream media has focussed on the lack of agreement between rich industrialised countries and representatives of the developing countries of the G77 and the worry that the sides won’t be able to come to a ‘deal’ in time. This is manifested in the fact that, while the original Zero Draft was 19 pages long, this latest version is a whole 81 pages with lots of brackets and multiple versions of the same paragraphs where there is disagreement.

While not ideal, this is actually a result of the fact that, so far, poorer developing countries have stuck together and are not allowing the richer countries to bully or bribe them into submission individually (as has happened at recent international climate summits). In fact, no deal may well be a better outcome than an artificially manufactured consensus that paves the way for the financialisation of nature and the corporate takeover of the global commons.

What’s far worse, is the way that the US and EU are blocking any attempt to define the green economy in a progressive way. The G77 wants the document to say that the green economy would “avoid financialisation of natural resources that can result in the excessive concentration of financial resources in developed countries” – precluding any interpretation of the green economy as the creation of new financialised markets in nature. The US and EU are blocking that.

The G77 has also called for the green economy to be more closely linked with poverty eradication and for it to 'avoid increasing the financial burden of developing countries and their people in providing basic needs'. Looks like pretty uncontroversial stuff no? Nope - the US and EU are blocking that too.

As for the G77 proposal that rich countries actually contribute some additional money to finance the move to a green economy for poorer countries, that has also been flatly rejected. Ditto to reforming the global financial system.

And while the efforts of civil society and poorer countries have meant that the right to water will likely be mentioned, the US is still trying to get rid of references to the right to food and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (which is the recognition that rich countries should be more responsible for taking action on the environment than poor countries).

It gets worse. It also looks like the commitment to end fossil fuel subsides is being watered down to say that there will be a “rationalisation and phasing out over the medium term” and there are efforts to get rid of any mention of the need to keep global temperature rises below 2ºC. And early hopes that the document would mark a move away from GDP growth as the central plank of development are being dashed – the current document is full of references to the need for yet more growth.

So, while it’s still early days (the conference hasn’t actually started yet), it is looking increasingly likely that we will get a final document that will leave the definition of the green economy wide open to interpretation by rich countries and corporations who want it to involve ascribing a financial value on nature.

The good news is, of course, that the G77 is still holding most of its ground – it remains to be seen however, whether this will be case on the conference floor itself.