See any events or details missing? Leave a comment with your suggestion! As always, you can also reach Rio Matters by Twitter or Facebook. Check back tomorrow for a recap of Day 3! On the agenda today are “roundtables” among heads of state to discuss how to implement the much-criticized Rio 20 agreement released on Tuesday. Of particular […]
Following the unsuccessful UN negotiations at COP15 in 2009, Brazil, South Africa, India and China (BASIC) met with the US to draft an agreement to address climate change. These states signed a non-binding arrangement to keep global warming to two degrees but neglected to set targets for cuts in carbon emissions. The multilateral backroom deal […]
See any events or details missing? Leave a comment with your suggestion! As always, you can also reach Rio Matters by Twitter or Facebook. Check back tomorrow for a recap of Day 2! For some background on Rio 20, see this excellent Q&A with The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts Q&A: Rio 20 Earth summit | Environment | guardian.co.uk […]
Aside from the policy discussions among top-level government officials at Rio+20, this week’s summit provides a valuable venue for thousands of non-governmental participants to connect, share their ideas and forge crucial partnerships. Rio Matters caught up with Illac Diaz of 1 Liter of Light, whose work we spotlighted earlier this month, to talk about his […]
“Our mission is to shut our doors as a nonprofit.” -Fabien Cousteau, Founder of Plant A Fish; raised in a family tradition of ocean exploration. Plant A Fish takes a grassroots approach to addressing ocean degradation; we’re here at a summit of government leaders and global institutions. What’s the connection? The difference between the Plant A Fish […]
Since the creation of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in 1992, nine major groups of civil society have been given important roles to play as partners in sustainable development. I got to speak with Kiara Worth, the Organizing Partner for the UN Commission for Sustainable Development Major Group for Children and Youth, ahead of the Rio+20 summit to discuss her […]
“Social media is inherently superficial; structural problems are inherently complex.” -Alnoor Ladha, Founder of Purpose and The Rules, a new global movement to address the sources of poverty. Why change The Rules? Most of the structures to date that create rules are post-World War II institutions, they were created for a very different world, for […]
“Increasingly we use social media as a filter, but the biggest thing we have is editorial judgment.” – Pete Cashmore, founder and CEO of Mashable, the online news source on technology, social media and digital culture. Why is greater access to digital technology and information so important for today’s societies? It fundamentally changes things, to have […]
Why do cities exist? One theory holds that cities are more productive than less dense and smaller concentrations of people. The source of this productivity may result because urban concentration reduces transportation costs for goods and people. Or because proximity increases the flow of ideas. More people, more diversity, and a higher concentration means that […]
In a recent episode of “The Colbert Report” the comedian Stephen Colbert mocked an issue he called “near and dear to my heart, and more importantly, near and dear to my beach house in South Carolina”– that is, the very real possibility of rising sea levels destroying coastal towns as a result of climate change: […]
Harvard Students Talk Rio+20 