RIO+20: we need young forces to make it happen…
July 3, 2012 Events, General, News, Organizations
My personal position on RIO +20s, after having assisted at all the other Earth Summits, is pessimistic and negative: human beings, instead of progressing in finding concrete solutions in negotiations, are back-tracking and particularly, backtracking on commitments established in 1992!
“Principles protecting human rights and equity are disappearing, watered down and remaining devoided of concrete means to implement them.”
We all, not only the Governments, but each of us with our own behavior, we have largely caused a huge degradation of the environment and crises after crises, a world centered on consumption.
We do act as in many science-fiction movies, where we do provoke our own destruction.
However, we have to recognize that Rio+20 can be seen at least as an achievement from a sustainable transport point of view.
A number of organizations step forward to present their plans for funding sustainable transport development, particularly in the developing world and emerging economies.
I like to remember you, at the last Conference, 10 years ago, transport was conspicuously absent from the Agenda.
At Rio+20, transport is now poised to be a significant part of the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals, which are beginning to take shape as the conference’s major outcomes: in fact, Rio+20’s outcome document contains two important paragraphs on sustainable transport.
Firstly, a specific recognition that sustainable transport and mobility is central to sustainable development, and secondly, the need to promote an integrated approach to policy-making.
Transport is also a key feature of the document’s sustainable cities chapter recognizing that sustainable mobility is one of the key challenges facing our cities.
Eight multilateral development banks, including the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and the European Investment Bank, have pledged $175bn in funding to improve public transport in developing countries around the world over the next 10 years.
But our imperative need is to take action NOW: each of you, Reader of this article, yes each of you, particularly addressing myself to all the young forces living on this Planet.
We all know – although many of us we are not willing to recognize it – that sustainable transport as a driver for green economic benefits, pollution reduction and improved mobility for urban residents, especially those with little income.
Placing a greater emphasis on public transport systems, it would cut air pollution, improve mobility, reduce congestion and road fatalities, as well as create millions of green jobs around the world;
The case for achieving UITP’s PTx2 strategy is now stronger than ever.
Now it’s time to take on those commitments and get into the difficult task of making them happen.
But this means changing our way of living, get rid of our consumerist model: are we ready for that? Are we able not to look at our lives as a long series of empty acts? What kind of life are we able to embrace to prosper and continue to simply be on this Earth?
Will our Ego’s leads to distruction?
On Rio+20, many leading Authorities and Executives like the Uruguayan President Mujica and Kumi Naidoo expressed dramatically and with great lucidity their positions:
“The future we want has gotten a little further away today. Rio+20 has turned into an epic failure. It has failed on equity, failed on ecology and failed on economy. This is not a foundation on which to grow economies or pull people out of poverty, it’s the last will and testament of a destructive twentieth century development model.”
We are talking about Testament, death, destructions…We need to find new pathways, different ways of thinking, we cannot reduce ourselves, with our brilliant intelligence to a mass of cells willing to pollute and destroy: we are beauty, art, light,and positive energy, too.
We cannot wait for our World Leaders to come up with solutions as we’ve seen from the outcome of previous summits over the years.
We have to get up and raise our cleverness, our lights , with making a difference at grass roots level in our own countries and continue to raise awareness and change attitudes to the way we do live and to REtake our environment into consideration in everything we do., harmoniously.
You, the Youth, you are already making a difference, following your heart which is so much closer to this beautiful place where we live, than any other human being reaching powerful position on the Planet.
Make a difference, every day, join our group or any other group acting on this world for better days of humanity!
Alessandra Gorini
Thanks to Philip Turner , for his contribution at the RIO +20 Conference.
