Europe’s Youth Get Ready for Rio
With one week to go to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20, much work remains to be done in order for talks to succeed at the Conference. As yet, only 70 of the 312 paragraphs in the draft outcome document, which will be used at the conference, have been agreed. The two main themes for the conference are the green economy and poverty eradication. In order to make the process more inclusive, the Executive Coordinator of Rio+20 hosted a live Google Hangout on 1st June. Representatives from youth groups, non-governmental organisations, associations, and Rio+20 delegations all took part with interaction also taking the form of social media, Twitter, Facebook and Google+.On 3rd June, following the last informal preparatory session in New York, EU Commissioner for Environment, Janez Potocnik, highlighted the immense potential of sustainable development and an inclusive green economy to transform environmental challenges into economic opportunities and lower social inequities. Mr Potocnik warned that failure to agree on concrete actions to deal with the problems of finite resources, unsustainable development and mass poverty would entail difficulties not just for future generations.
Rio+20 will be very significant for young people. The conference is profoundly important to push forward the sustainable development agenda and address the shortcomings of the past 20 years. Ambitious binding agreements must be made in Rio to ensure that young people and future generations will be able to live in stable environments for years to come. The Youth Forum calls for young people to be fully recognised as important stakeholders in the Rio+20 negotiations as young people will be those most affected by the outcomes of the conference.
