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. To reflect our work in this area, we have launched a new campaign web-page at http://canadians.org/rio20.
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, while excluding the voices of many and failing to recognize the basic human rights of water and sanitation, as well as the rights of nature.
The Council also intends to participate in the ‘Towards People’s Summit of Rio+20′ in Porto Alegre, Brazil this coming January 24-29. 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.”
And Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow and water campaigner Meera Karunananthan are currently working on a paper on ‘the green economy and water’, with a scheduled release date of April 2012.
Key blogs
UPDATE: The road to Rio+20 is paved with corporate environmentalism
NEWS: Rio+20 ‘green economy templates’ point to dams, water privatization
NEWS: Big business backs water agenda at Rio+20
UPDATE: Rio+20 and water
More blogs
For additional Council of Canadians blogs on Rio+20, please go to http://canadians.org/blog/?s=%22rio%2B20%22.
The official website for Rio+20 is at http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/.
Watch for new content on an ongoing basis.
