Rio+20 Summit
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-02949, in the name of Aileen McLeod, on Rio+20. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the upcoming Rio+20 summit in June 2012, which will see world leaders, governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups come together to discuss how they can reduce poverty, advance social equity and ensure environmental protection for the world; notes that, ahead of the summit, the seven key areas that have been identified as needing priority are decent jobs, energy, sustainable cities, food security and sustainable agriculture, water, oceans and disaster readiness; further notes that Rio+20 is in cooperation with the entire UN system; acknowledges the role of CIFAL Scotland in bringing together the public and private sector to advance the green growth agenda in Scotland and supports its ambition to give Scotland a powerful voice in promoting greater sustainability worldwide, including for organisations in the south of Scotland; considers that the original Rio Summit, held in 1992, was a milestone in global environmental talks, and believes that Rio+20 has the potential to go further in providing guidelines for long-term sustainable development worldwide.
17:06
It is a real privilege for me to debate this motion, which seeks the Parliament’s support to urge those who will attend the forthcoming Rio+20 conference to agree a programme of action that will make a serious and lasting contribution to tackling the pressing challenges that face global society, principally how to build a green economy, achieve sustainable development, lift people out of poverty and improve international co-ordination for sustainable development.
I thank all the members who have signed my motion and those who will participate in this evening’s debate. I also congratulate CIFAL Scotland on bringing this issue to the Parliament and, as I have said in my motion, on its work
“in bringing together the public and private sector to advance the green growth agenda in Scotland”
and its ambition, shared with Sniffer, Scottish Business in the Community, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Scottish Environment LINK,
“to give Scotland a powerful voice in promoting greater sustainability worldwide”.
Through the establishment of the Rio flourishing Scotland working group, those organisations came together to raise awareness of Rio+20 in Scotland and jointly produced “A Flourishing Scotland”, which not only celebrates Scotland’s progress since the first earth summit in 1992 but, importantly, highlights those areas in which greater ambition is required if Scotland is to maintain its momentum towards a sustainable future. Their efforts are to be commended.
As colleagues will be aware, Rio+20 convenes 20 years after the earth summit in Rio, which led to the publication of the “Rio Declaration on Environment and Development”. In reflecting the emergence of a global consensus on and political commitment at the highest level to developmental and environmental co-operation to tackle poverty, promote environmental protection and achieve sustainable development through a global partnership under the auspices of the United Nations system, that document resonates as profoundly today as it did 20 years ago.
There is no doubt that, 20 years later, some progress has been made. Few today deny the reality of climate change and no one is under any illusion that it is the world’s poorest who are most vulnerable to the destruction that continued environmental degradation will unleash. However, our collective response remains inadequate, as many Governments simply fail to implement the measures necessary to reverse global warming and rescue countless millions from the unacceptable costs of climate injustice.
Today, the global economy faces its worst economic and social crisis in living memory and the inescapable truth is that yet again those who live in the world’s poorest countries will suffer most as inequalities in income, health, education and mortality widen even further. I therefore echo the remarks made in January by our First Minister when he urged world leaders to make 2012 a “year of climate justice” and the motion adopted by the Parliament in March, in which we endorsed the opportunity for Scotland to champion climate justice.
If we are to achieve that, the Rio+20 talks must deliver. The conference is a historic opportunity for Governments, the UN, and other international agencies to provide the leadership that we will need if we are to deliver concrete policies that will promote prosperity and reduce poverty, advance social equity, and ensure environmental protection.
I do not consider that to be an overly ambitious request. The Scottish Parliament has shown what can be done to bring sustainable development closer to the heart of decision making in Scotland. Today we are fully aware of the economic, environmental and social impact of the policies that we pursue to meet our objectives. As parliamentarians, most of us are involved with a range of stakeholders who are determined to support our efforts to mainstream those concerns into our legislative and policy thinking. That has led us to enact pioneering climate change legislation that incorporates world-leading emissions and renewables targets, along with commitments to climate adaptation and Scotland’s first land use strategy. Through our legislation, we have championed community involvement in renewable energy development. We have demonstrated that protecting the environment is desirable, and that it can be profitable for individuals and businesses alike. As the Parliament of and for the people of Scotland, we are encouraging our non-governmental organisations, businesses, local authorities, community groups, and research institutes to become part of a collective and collaborative effort to create a sustainable future and ensure employability.
Last night, it was my privilege to host the flourishing Scotland reception, which brought together a wide and diverse cross-section of Scottish society, all linked by a common commitment to support actions that will lead to a more sustainable global future. It is not only appropriate policies that we need to implement if we are to succeed at the forthcoming Rio conference. Arguably the greatest challenge that will face Rio+20 is to establish an international framework that will ensure delivery of the policies that we need—an international framework for sustainable development. The absence of a robust and meaningful international framework represents the weakest link in the prospects for achieving success at the Rio+20 conference.
I said at the outset that I wanted to congratulate CIFAL Scotland, Sniffer, Scottish Business in the Community, the Scottish Wildlife Trust and Scottish Environment LINK on the work that they do in raising awareness in Scotland about how important it is that the Rio+20 conference is a success in substance and its subsequent implementation. In closing, I stress that the matters that will be discussed next month in Rio do not involve faceless people in a faraway land. Those issues affect us all, and we all have a responsibility for the success of the conference. I am delighted that Stewart Stevenson will represent the Scottish Government and Parliament in Rio next month. Achieving a consensus around my motion will enable him to take to that meeting a strong and positive message from the people of Scotland.
I am not suggesting that Scotland’s journey towards supporting sustainable development is over. Certainly, there is more to be done. Scotland needs a renewed focus on sustainable development that acknowledges its key role in achieving economic stability, environmental sustainability and social equality. In that regard, the Parliament has an important governance role to play in regularly reviewing and scrutinising the progress that is being made. More work needs to be done on identifying and exploring alternatives to gross domestic product, especially given the apparent disconnect between GDP and prosperity. What measure should we use to take account of Scotland’s values, attitudes and behaviours in relation to sustainable development? It is incumbent on us all to continue to work with the people of Scotland to that end.
If ever there was a time when the interests of different peoples in different parts of the world could have been regarded as separate and unrelated, that time is long past. Today we live in an interconnected and integrated world in which our individual actions directly affect the welfare of people across the planet, just as their actions affect us. The Rio+20 conference will provide an opportunity to take a decisive step towards delivering sustainable development and climate justice at a global level that will benefit every citizen in every country across the world. I therefore hope that members of Parliament will give their unanimous backing to the motion and, by doing so, send a message to the delegates who will attend the Rio+20 conference that the people of Scotland urge them to a successful conclusion. We have the momentum; let us build on it and ensure that it does not end in Rio.
17:14
I am pleased to speak in this debate in support of the Rio+20 summit. I congratulate Aileen McLeod on securing the debate and giving us the opportunity to discuss the approaching summit. My colleague Claudia Beamish is disappointed not to be here, but it seems that her committee trip to Gigha to see in action many of the policies that speak to the purpose of Rio+20 has left her speechless—she has lost her voice, which is a bit unfortunate for a politician.
The Rio+20 summit will bring together Governments from around the world. The organisers hope that it will be
“an historic opportunity to define pathways to a safer, more equitable, cleaner, greener and more prosperous world for all.”
There is huge expectation and hope about what global summits can achieve, but no one should underestimate the challenges that we face in achieving a global transformation in how we grow our economies and sustain our populations.
The first Rio summit, two decades ago, was a seminal moment in the growth of sustainable development and environmental protection. Then, the core message was that nothing less than a complete transformation of our attitudes and behaviour would bring about the necessary changes. Ten years later, the world met again in South Africa to carry on the work. This June, world leaders, Governments, businesses, NGOs and others will gather to pledge once again to move towards the level of transformation that was called for in 1992. However, we cannot ignore the persistent concerns that progress is not fast enough; that global commitments involve warm words, but not enough action; and that the big discussions about responsibility and growth between the developed and developing countries get in the way of progress.
We last discussed the issue of climate justice in March, when the Parliament joined together to promote
“the moral, environmental and economic reasons for action”
on climate change. At that time, Scottish Labour called on the Scottish Government to
“redouble its efforts to reduce emissions and target climate change in Scotland”,
a call that was supported by members from across the Parliament.
Global summits are vital to bring together the world to work on a complex set of issues. Those issues know no borders and require co-operation. Radical solutions will be on the table in June—there is a push for a law on ecocide. Pollution, climate change, ecological degradation and the worrying decline in global biodiversity are issues that concern us all, and there is an increasing call for accountability.
However, there must also be further progress at home. The seven key areas that have been identified for discussion at the summit can be worked towards at home if we are to live up to the First Minister’s pledge in China a few months ago to
“set our own house in order, to be part of the solution not the problem but also to lead by example.”
To take just one of the key themes—the green economy—the RSPB has highlighted the opportunity at the summit to work towards the creation of a global green economy, which would help all the world’s people and deliver social, environmental and economic development in some of the poorest parts of the world.
As WWF Scotland and other organisations are highlighting in advance of Rio+20, the Scottish Government must continue to take action at home to ensure that our economy moves towards a low-carbon and sustainable future. We must ensure that the focus is not simply on jobs that are associated with renewable energy, but on embedding change in every sector of our economy.
I welcome the chance to speak in the debate. I wish the delegation well as it joins world leaders in Rio in 22 days’ time. I hope not only that agreements are reached that will shift the world towards a more sustainable future, but that the summit gives fresh impetus to the Scottish Government’s commitment to a sustainable and low-carbon future here at home.
17:18
I join Claire Baker in congratulating Aileen McLeod on securing the debate. I apologise for not attending last night’s reception but, unfortunately, I was not in Edinburgh until this morning.
There is often public cynicism about the type of event that is represented by the Rio+20 summit. In some ways, I can understand why that might be, but Aileen McLeod did a good job of spelling out why such events are important, which is that they can change mindsets and achieve certain goals. We probably do not believe that everything that needs to be achieved has been achieved through such events in the past, but that is not to say that they are not without import. Next month’s summit is important on a number of fronts, prime amongst which is the aim of getting the world to face up to the challenge of tackling the obscenity of poverty in the 21st century.
I think that we would all agree that poverty, in any of its forms, is offensive. Too many people here at home in Scotland struggle to make ends meet. I am sure that all members will see, probably all too regularly, individual constituents come to them facing such struggles.
Of course, poverty is a global phenomenon. Too many people in the developing world face the struggle of absolute poverty; too many mothers struggle to feed their children; too many children fail to meet basic standards of literacy and numeracy, because they are being forced to work rather than learn; too many children fail to live to see their fifth birthday; and too many families—men, women and children—face the extremities begotten of poverty.
Aileen McLeod did us a service by reminding us that the people who will be affected, I hope beneficially, by the outcomes of the summit—the people to whom I have just referred—are not faceless people. They are mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. They are real people who have other people who love them and we must do all that we can to ensure that they have a decent standard of living.
The most fundamental challenge before the Rio+20 summit lies in the part of Aileen McLeod’s motion that refers to those in attendance coming together to reduce poverty and advance social equity. I hope that concrete solutions can be put in place and thereafter acted upon.
Another issue that is of fundamental importance is environmental protection, which is inextricably linked to the issue of poverty. I will touch on that shortly, but of particular importance at the Rio+20 summit will be the discussions on how to contribute to protecting biodiversity and ecosystems. A number of briefings that members have received in advance of the debate highlight why that is important.
WWF states in its briefing that it published a “Living Planet Report”. The report reveals that biodiversity continues to decline and sets out why it is important that that issue is addressed. It also points out that the world’s ecological footprint outstrips its natural biocapacity. The summit must face up to those issues.
RSPB Scotland also provided a briefing about the summit. It states that it
“hopes that the summit will be an opportunity for the international community to work towards the creation of a green economy that will benefit the world’s poorest people.”
Of course, those who are most adversely affected by climate change are the world’s poorest people. That is why the two issues are inextricably linked to one another.
I see that I am running out of time, Presiding Officer. I had hoped to refer to some projects in my own constituency that demonstrate the protection of biodiversity, that could be learned from and could contribute to a positive outcome at the Rio+20 summit.
It is right to have this debate and I congratulate Aileen McLeod on securing it. It is right that Scotland can contribute positively to the Rio+20 summit. I am sure that we all hope that it will be a successful summit with some concrete, practical outcomes thereafter.
17:23
I, too, congratulate Aileen McLeod on securing the debate. I also thank WWF Scotland and RSPB Scotland for their very useful briefings.
I hope that all of us in this chamber—perhaps I had better say this Parliament—wish the upcoming Rio+20 summit every success and agree with the seven key areas identified as priorities. I am particularly pleased that food security and sustainable agriculture will also be discussed, because feeding and watering the world’s growing population will become a bigger and bigger issue for all Governments as we go forward and risks becoming a major cause of conflict and, indeed, a threat to peace.
I am happy that the minister in attendance this evening will attend the summit as part of the UK delegation—in fact, I am jealous of him. It is right that all the nations of the UK work together on these global issues. The First Minister has said that climate change should be a major theme for Rio+20. I hope that members on all sides will recognise the UK Government’s commitment to climate justice.
The UK Government has committed to £2.9 billion of international climate finance specifically to help developing countries to pursue low-carbon growth and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The UK Government is to be commended for seeking to lever in private sector investment to tackling climate change in developing economies, notably through the capital markets climate initiative—the CMCI—which aims to unlock the private sector’s ability to help to meet the estimated £100 billion of new green investment that will be required annually by 2020 to tackle climate change in developing countries.
The UK Government has said that it is ambitious for the summit. Caroline Spelman, who will lead the UK delegation, has rightly argued that our economic, social and environmental security—our future wellbeing—relies on tangible outcomes from Rio+20.
The earth summit in 1992 is often described by commentators and historians as a major turning point in global understanding and awareness of the human impact on the world’s resources and the environment, and thank goodness for that. In most countries, the concept of sustainable development has become a mainstream one, which stems in large part from the 1992 summit.
All of us hope that in 20 years’ time, Rio+20 is seen to have achieved concrete results that have helped countries, including those in the developing world, to achieve the lifting of living standards through environmentally friendly economic growth that makes sustainable use of the world’s precious natural resources without ruining them for future generations.
17:27
I thank Aileen McLeod for securing this debate on the Rio+20 summit next month.
As the motion recognises, the first Rio earth summit was a milestone in global environmental talks. In comparison with recent climate talks, the agreements made at Rio were extensive. Rio established the term “sustainable development” in the political vocabulary. The Rio declaration defined the polluter-pays principle and the precautionary principle, and recognised that women and indigenous peoples have vital roles to play in creating solutions to environmental crises.
Rio also produced agreements on the agenda 21 action plan and the forest principles, and gave us the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the international environmental treaty that led to the Kyoto protocol’s mandatory emission limits and the framework for all future global climate negotiations.
However, all has not been rosy since Rio. Global carbon emissions have continued to rise and the efforts to replace Kyoto have become increasingly fraught. Millennium development goals on poverty will be missed and the economic model, then and now, is based on debt-fuelled overconsumption and is hard-wired for vast levels of poverty and inequality.
Twenty years on from Rio number 1, I welcome the seven issues that are mentioned in the motion—there are accords, action plans and agreements that we can have for decent jobs, low-carbon energy, food security, water scarcity and all the others—but the point that I want to make is that they all have their root causes in our choice of economic system and our approach to economic governance.
The green economy is one of the key themes at Rio+20. For years, Greens and many others have called for a transition to a low-carbon economy within ecological boundaries. However, the definition of a green economy is the debate that is raging in the lead-up to Rio. The UK’s position is effectively that our economic activities trash the planet because we do not ascribe a financial value to the beneficial functions of nature, such as clean air, fresh water and healthy soils. That argument proposes the commodification of services that a healthy ecosystem provides for free.
The argument goes that by costing ecological services or monetising the right to pollute, and bringing those into a market, we can continue with something very similar to business as usual but live within ecological limits. There are many who oppose that false green economy. The corporate green economy would lead to the privatisation of land and nature by multinational companies and take control of the resources further away from the communities that depend on them, instead of contributing to sustainable development and economic justice.
The World Development Movement has called for a
“real green economy, not a Trojan horse for bankers”.
A true green economy would embrace economic justice—the right of poor communities to determine their path out of poverty, and an end to harmful policies that put profit before people and the environment. A true green economy would replace our focus on economic growth and unsustainable consumption with a focus on meeting everyone’s needs in a truly sustainable manner. In Scotland, there are similar debates over what is meant by “sustainable economic development”.
I wish the minister and all those who are attending the Rio+20 conference every success in working for the positive outcome that is essential. I ask the minister—following his attendance at the summit—to seek to find Government time for a full debate on the summit and its outcome.
17:31
This is a huge subject that is central to the future of the planet, and it is one that deserves to be constantly on our agenda. Indeed, our climate justice debate, as was mentioned, was one of the first to take place in any Parliament, and we have an opportunity to expand on many of its ideas.
I thank Aileen McLeod for lodging the motion. The issue requires us to have a moral duty to use our position in the world to ensure that we have our own house in order. In some instances, it is a cry for self-help to allow people different routes forward. It is also a call for international solidarity so that people will have an opportunity to benefit from the good and bad experiences of other countries and adapt them to their particular needs.
There is much that I could say, but I will refer in particular to the document “A Flourishing Scotland”, which we celebrated at a Parliament event last night with members of the public and NGOs. The document is in two parts. The first covers celebrations and the second covers ambitions. The celebrations are important to remember because there has been progress since the Rio process began. For example, in the area of biodiversity, one of the noted celebrations in Scotland is the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act 2004, which
“introduced a biodiversity duty on all public bodies, a landmark duty that now needs to be translated into action on the ground to build on successful initiatives such as water environment restoration funds.”
Under the ambitions section, the document states:
“As the 2010 target to halt the loss of biodiversity in Scotland was not met, more effort and investment is now required to turn around continuing declines in nature.”
We see the realities in our country and, if we bring those realities to other people, it may help them with the decisions that they have to make. I offer my thanks to RSPB and WWF for their remarks on biodiversity and the challenges that we face.
To slightly repeat myself, I note that in the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee we discussed taking more action on peatlands. We are already debating the rewetting of peatlands. As the International Union for Conservation of Nature commission of inquiry on peatlands said,
“By creating a better framework to integrate public and business policies and by putting the right funding mechanisms in place, we should be able to secure a much better future for our peatlands by 2050.”
That is an example of how Scotland is addressing biodiversity. That action is essential in many ways because peatlands do not just sequester carbon; they also increase the species that live in the areas, which makes the areas a potential tourist destination. There are great benefits to ecosystems from that work.
I was involved last year in a project that is going to measure how the condition of a particular part of my constituency improves over the next 50 years. It is called the Coigach and Assynt living landscape project. It aims to set an example to other parts of the country and to help Scotland’s Government by taking practical action to link the environment and the people who live in the area. That will enable people to plan for a brighter future.
Rio+20 is a great opportunity for us not just to celebrate a flourishing Scotland in the way that we have done but to reach our hands across the oceans and work with those in other countries to ensure that we have a flourishing planet. Collaboration between all parts of our society and people in other countries will be essential to achieve the aims.
17:36
I welcome the opportunity to respond to the debate and to congratulate Aileen McLeod on securing it. Indeed, I congratulate all those who have been involved in the launch of the report “A Flourishing Scotland”. I was delighted to be with such an engaged group of people last night, just as I am delighted to be going to Rio as part of the UK delegation to work with people from countries around the world. I should say that when I go to Brazil—I say this to make members feel slightly better—I will almost certainly see none of the country. My experience of international conferences tells me that that is how things will work.
Let me address a few of the points that members have raised during the debate. Aileen McLeod talked about a range of things. I respond to her by saying that, in the preparation for Rio+20, Brazil has been playing a particularly important part, for example by working with others on the wider agenda in the intersessional talks that have taken place in the past couple of weeks. It has shown its ability to draw together disparate points of view and start to get some consensus.
I absolutely agree with the thread that has run through every speech, which is that the world’s poorest people are bearing the cost of the carbon-driven prosperity that we have built up over a long period of time, here and in many other developed countries. It is time that we repaid some of the debt that we owe to the people who are paying the price of our success. It is terrific to see that so much of Scotland’s civic society agrees that we should share responsibility.
Aileen McLeod said that GDP does not necessarily equate to prosperity; there is something in that. I am always drawn to the Bhutanese national constitution, which embeds the concept of gross national happiness as the way in which things should be measured.
We in Scotland are already doing a great deal. We are working on solar energy in Malawi through our international development fund and we are looking for bids for development projects in sub-Saharan Africa. We have awarded £1.7 million to support the University of Strathclyde’s Malawi renewable energy acceleration project so that, for the first time, rural areas can access reliable energy. We collaborate with the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute and we have introduced the Commonwealth saltire professional fellowships.
Claire Baker apologised for Claudia Beamish not being here. I am jealous that Claudia is on Gigha as it is one of my favourite islands. I say that at risk of offending others. Of course, the Gaelic name for the island means “God’s Island”. If someone is going to lose their voice, where better to do it than on Gigha?
Radical solutions will be on the table at Rio, and we have to build alliances to get support for taking them forward. I absolutely agree that, in urging the international community to take action, we cannot neglect the need to continue to do it here.
Jamie Hepburn majored on poverty and what we might term emerging emitters in poor nations moving on to the kind of model that has got us to where we are. We must help them to move to a new economy without their going through the same emitting stage as us. As Jamie Hepburn said, we must protect biodiversity and ecosystems.
We must deliver many messages in Rio and we will work with many different people. We recently accepted an invitation from the secretary general of the United Nations to participate in a sustainable energy for all initiative, which is one of many things that I am sure will come up in Rio. The economy is an important part of the agenda and we must ensure that the green economy has green roots and that it reaches the other parts that previous initiatives did not reach.
Jamie McGrigor talked about food security and sustainable agriculture and touched on the subject of water. I agree with what he said in that regard.
Alison Johnstone highlighted the seven issues in the motion and posed the question: what is a green economy? One thing that we must be careful about in this agenda—as in so many other areas where we seek to influence long-term changes in society, business and government—is that we do not bet on a single idea, because we do not know yet all that we will need to do or what will work. A single idea about what a new economy might look like is probably not going to be sufficient for us to respond as we will be required to respond.
Rob Gibson talked about moral duty and biodiversity. In that context, we must have diversity in all that we do. We in Scotland must show leadership and we must show what can be done. Equally, we must not assume that what suits us and our opportunities will necessarily work so well for others.
I very much look forward to doing more work on peatlands. It was one of the great successes of the Durban conference; it was absolutely first class that we were able to get peatlands into the climate change agenda.
We have seen in the intersessional work that has been going on in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change that progress is slower than we would like it to be, which is why it is so important that small nations and sub-states from all around the world are also going to Rio to show that we can take action individually and are not constrained by the idea that we must wait for others to make a move. We are at the forefront of a clean industrial revolution and will be looking to build a low-carbon economy. We can help others see the way forward on that.
I very much hope that I will be able to bring good news from Rio, which is part of a rolling programme of international engagement and United Nations led activity to address climate change. Progress is slow, but the message is spreading and more and more countries around the world are engaging. We will take our opportunities to engage and to show others what can be done.
Meeting closed at 17:43.