As we have noted in numerous campaign blogs, the Council of Canadians will intervene at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) – more commonly referred to as Rio+20 – set to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on June 20-22, 2012. There is already significant concern that the global green economy agenda on water that is now emerging for Rio+20 is backed by big business and includes water privatization, large dams and putting a price tag on nature, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=10999.
Towards that intervention, this coming January 24-29, the Council intends to participate in the ‘Towards People’s Summit of Rio+20′ in Porto Alegre, Brazil. As noted in their outreach, “The Brazilian Civil Society Facilitating Committee for Rio +20 is calling civil society organizations and social and popular movements from all around the world to a process that will culminate in June 2012 into the autonomous and plural event, provisionally called People’s Summit of the Rio +20 for Social and Environmental Justice, parallel to the official Conference.”
More can be read about this January 2012 Thematic Social Forum at http://rio20.net/en/iniciativas/thematic-social-forum-capitalist-crisis-social-and-environmental-justice and http://rio20.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Foro_social_tematico_EN.pdf. (In Canada, the Council has been working with Alternatives, Centrale des syndicats nationaux, and other allies on a possible Canada-Quebec-First Nations Social Forum, http://canadians.org/blog/?p=11461.)
The Council is also working on a major report on ‘the green economy and water’, with a tentative release date of April 2012.
For Council of Canadians blogs on Rio+20, please see http://canadians.org/blog/?s=%22Rio%2B20%22.
