Less than a week to Rio+20

The Rio+20 Summit is less than a week away from beginning, with 50,000 delegates descending on the city 20 years after the landmark Earth Summit of 1992. As many as 115 leaders are expected to attend over the 3 days of the main event, whilst preliminary meetings for businesses, environmental groups and NGO’s are taking place in advance.

It is a huge opportunity for the planet to move towards a more sustainable path, but attendees are perhaps not as optimistic as 20 years ago. With the worldwide financial difficulties and unproductive COP meetings clouding the conference, it is difficult to see the necessary commitments being made.

In the run-up to the event, more than 100 science academies around the world have called for the delegates to deal with population and consumption, which they see as the two main overarching issues. It is thought to be a historic announcement as scientific authorities in developed and developing countries have long been divided on these 2 topics. African authorities for example, have long felt that the question of population has been used to deflect away from developed country’s consumption patterns, but now they are too urging action on overpopulation.

Prof Godray of Oxford University says, "The overall message is that we need a renewed focus on both population and consumption - it's not enough to look at one or the other." The statement goes on to say, "The global population is currently around seven billion, and most projections suggest that it will probably lie between eight and 11 billion by 2050. Global consumption levels are at an all time high, largely because of the high per-capita consumption of developed countries."

They go on to say that providing new economic models are followed, there is no need to reduce prosperity in developed countries in order to provide for the poorest billion. It is currently felt that the draft agreement is far too weak on population and consumption. For example committing to, “systematically consider population trends and projections in our national, rural and urban development strategies and policies" and to, "change unsustainable consumption and production patterns", which is currently under veto by the US and EU.

Preparatory talks are likely to continue until the start of the main Summit next Wednesday.