Want to learn more about Rio+20 ?

Following is a special message from David Woolcombe, president of Peace Child International. This NGO created an educational hub that can help young people, whether they are participating in a Rio+20 simulation or not, to know more about the issues raised at Rio+20.

Dear Friends:
 
Education & Awareness-raising for Rio+20: 
I am delighted to be able to announce today the launch of our Education Hub for Rio+20:
 

http://rioplus20education.info

For the first time, it brings together everything Peace Child has ever published on the Rio Earth Summit Process – - from our  Children’s Edition of Agenda 21:  Rescue Mission : Planet Earth, to our Johannesburg update: Rescue 2002, our Copenhagen briefing:Energy Revolution – to the 6 new Education Booklets on Sustainable Human Development  we have prepared for Rio+20, loosely based on the UN Human Development Reports and the UNEP Green Economy briefing. All these are created by young people for young people – based on the original UN documents, almost all of which are featured on the Background section of the site.

Our goal is to get every school on the planet to teach their students about the crucial issues addressed by Rio+20: the website Home page starts with seven jargon-free slides that summarise some of the Rio+20 issues, linked to posters outlining some solutions. It goes on to propose ideas for Action:
1.    The UNESCO-supported ‘My City+20’ – Model Rio Earth Summit idea;
2.    A DAY OF ACTION AND LEARNING for Rio+20.
3.    A ‘Do it yourself Green Economy Transition Plan’ – for your self – your household – your community – and your Nation.
The site also links to the UN’s Rio+20 sites and its Global Conversation Campaign: The Future We Want. It will, we hope – through the Add section – link to many other great initiatives for action and awareness-raising. Like your’s! Please share your ideas with me, or Simon Howlett, the young webmaster who created the site, at: rio@peacechild.org

Peace Child International has worked continuously on the Rio Earth Summit Agenda since 1992. For us, the road does not end in Rio: it begins again in Rio this June – and continues for the rest of our lives, seeking – struggling – committing – innovating – and energizing our communities and nations for SUSTAINABILITY.  It is truly our generational challenge: and we hope this site will help us all rise to it.

Thank you for sharing news about this site with your network.
 

Sincerely

David R. Woollcombe, President, Peace Child International
International Director, World Youth Congress  Series on Youth and Sustainable Development
[david@peacechild.org]

Rio+20: Logistics and Agenda

Hi Everyone,

Looking for details on the dates of the conference, the mission of the organizational committees and who's compiling the zero draft? There's a small power point presentation that you can view at the link below that will give you all the useful information you need to know about the Rio+20 conference including the venue of the conference and side events.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/46990110/Rioplus20_logistics%20and%20agenda.pdf

For those interested, remember that the last day to apply for the side events is the 31st of March! That's by the end of this week.

Yours sustainably,

MyCity+20

Rio+YOU - It's time to mobilize!

MyCity+20 has been adopted by Road to Rio+20, an NGO coalition, as one of their two worldwide campaign. The second one is Rio+YOU, and we strongly encourage you to take a look at what it's all about.

Join the campaign, spread the passion.

See more at:
http://www.riomasvos.org/?lang=en

Your time, your future !
Yours sustainably,
MyCity+20

NRDC’s Vision for a Different Kind of Earth Summit

Today we host on our blog an article by NRDC, on the kind of inovations the Rio+20 simulations could try out!

by Michael Davidson, Natural Resources Defense Council

From NRDC’s participation in international summits since Stockholm 1972, we recognize the value of gatherings such as Rio+20 in generating real progress on the ground toward environmental goals. Success at Earth Summit 2012 is particularly important given the growing skepticism worldwide about the ability of such international negotiations and gatherings to do anything worthwhile on the huge environmental and economic challenges we face. The summit process will involve thousands of officials, business and civil society leaders throughout the world and a collective investment of hundreds of millions of dollars. It is critical that this time and energy is not wasted.

In order to realize its potential, we propose the following structure for Earth Summit 2012. A one- to two-day conference simulation based on this will benefit from previous successes and be readily accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students. For more information on our priority outcomes for Rio+20, visit www.race2rio.org .

Three Days of Recognition and Support for Country Actions

The official high-level Rio+20 meeting from June 20-22 must be different than earlier summits.  There is no need for another long Plan of Action or the addition of another treaty to the hundreds that have already been adopted.  The three-day meeting should instead put the spotlight on individual and collective actions of presidents and prime ministers to move toward sustainable development goals. These sessions should:

●      Encourage all presidents and prime ministers to use their allotted time for speeches – usually about 5 minutes - to present on the specific sustainable development initiatives, challenges, and needs in their respective countries.

●      Create the expectation for new or substantially scaled-up commitments from all countries, which are specific and short-term; and identify partners for technical assistance and coordinating actions. Here are some examples.

●     Produce a politically-binding outcomes document of not more than ten pages that recognizes the imminent threat of exceeding our planet’s natural boundaries, the need to move to a new green economy, and recommits governments to act on their promises to move towards sustainable development. Here’s what we think about the current zero draft: on clean energy/climate; oceans; from a youth perspective.

●      Generate an appendix of country commitments to the outcomes document that provides a foundation for a registry of such commitments at a new global center for sustainability actions:  

Four Days of Engagement and Cooperation with Major Stakeholders

The period of four days (June 16-19) prior to the official summit provides an unprecedented opportunity to engage sub-national governments, businesses and civil society on an equal footing. These sessions should be coordinated closely and in parallel with the official meeting; they should:

●    Invite CEOs of major corporations, local government officials, and civil society leaders to give presentations on sustainable development challenges and opportunities in their sectors.

●      Create the expectation for commitments from all major businesses and local governments that are specific and meaningful, and complement or exceed national goals.

●      Produce a registry of major stakeholder commitments, which includes robust monitoring and reporting provisions, and is in parallel with the national registry above.

To learn more about NRDC’s Race to Rio campaign, please visit us and sign up for our periodic newsletter at www.race2rio.org

Highlight: Paris+20 and an idea for a framework you can adopt

As you may already know, the idea of organising simulations of Rio+20 was born in Paris. At the moment, MyCity+20 is receiving many requests regarding how the simulation should or could look like. This post aims at sharing how Paris+20 is making the magic happen :)

First of all, we are differentiating between the responsibility of the organisers and the secretariat  and presidency. The organisers are creating a "big box", which is a framework for the simulation, while the secretariat and presidency are creating a "medium box", inside the big one, which is a framework for the negotiation.

The "big box" is about setting the date, the place, which delegation is represented, which twist you want to introduce compared to the real process, etc. The previous post, called "The framework of Rio+20 simulations" are about this big box.

The "medium box" is about setting negotiation rules, deciding how to facilitate the negotiations, etc. They are mostly the responsibility of the secretariat and presidency.

In the case of Paris+20, we are doing the following: 

From the organisers point of view:

1. Preparations. They consist of 3 phases:

1a. Conferences, so the participants get a background knowledge on the issues at stake. In this phase and the following one they go from individuals to participants.

1b. Delegation preps: participants are divided in teams, so they can prepare their positions, go deeper on some topics and decide their working methods.

1c. Prep-coms: there will be intermediate (short) meetings so the delegations can start interacting with each other, establish alliances, etc.

2. The simulation itself : 

We, as organisers of Paris+20, provide food, a place for a three-day negotiation (including one night), and all the necessary material.

3. Debriefing:

It will last one day and will happen at the UNESCO building, which is not the same place as the simulation itself. The point of the debriefing is to allow delegates to become individuals again, i.e. who are not role-playing any more. Psychological studies have shown that this is absolutely necessary in order to turn anything experienced during the game to a positive and enriching learning experience.

4. Day of action:

We now address the daily life of our participants. What are the kind of projects, actions or careers they could pursue in order to "be the change they want to see in the world" ?

From the point of view of the delegates:

In parallel to the work of the organisers, and from phase 1.b to 2:

- A zero draft (simplified) is published by the secretariat.

- Delegations have time to amend the draft

- The draft is modified, and thus becomes draft 1. It will be the basis for the negotiations in phase 1c and 2.

In parallel with this work on the draft, one has to decide the voting rules & procedures, the way the negotiations will be held, etc. It is the responsibility of the Secretariat and the Presidency, but any decision taken has to have a consensus among the voting delegations (and eventually be formally voted on). The Secretariat will transmit a document called "rules of procedure", based on the Rio+20 rules of procedures, which can be found on the internet.

We are not yet sure how the negotiations will be held, but we forsee the following:

- one opening session, very formal, to help people get into the roleplay, as well as voting the procedures (can NGOs/IMF attend any session? can they vote ?)

- negotiation blocks: delegates are divided in discussion groups, where every country is represented. After each block of discussion, we will schedule buffer time, for each delegation to meet again, and for setting the agenda of the next block. Each decision will need a vote from the plenary to be finalised.

- closing ceremony, for the final voting.

These explanations are based on the design of Paris+20 and are not at all a "must" for all the simulations of Rio+20!

We hope it does help you :)

Yours sustainably,

Paris+20

Framework of the Rio+20 simulation: Scenario Set-ups

Have you ever wondered why the UNESCO process is how it is? How could you change it, etc? Creating a model of reality is the perfect opportunity to test scenarios, new processes.

In line with the goals set by us for our Rio+20 simulations (educating the youth, acting locally), we encourage each city to experiment, and we suggest you to pick one of the following scenarios:

Don’t forget to let us know which scenario you’re implementing! Keep in mind some include modifications in the Rules of Procedure.

A) How can the role of local authorities be reinforced?

The program “Agenda 21”, directed at municipalities, local governments, and civil society groups, was one of the most successful outcomes of the Rio 1992 Conference. The local scale seems to be one of the most relevant scales at which to apply the general principles that are decided at an international level. Therefore, it can be useful to look into a possible further-reaching involvement of this group of actors.

è  Thus, local authorities could negotiate directly on concrete and common issues depending on their own situation. One delegation of local authorities could take its own commitments.

è One variant of this hypothesis could focus on world megacities and give them one vote since some of them have a GDP and/or a population more important than some states.

Example of specific delegations: Mexico City area, The Megacities of New York or Tokyo, Singapore.

B) How can the need to consider long-term issues be reconciled with the inherent tendency of negotiations to focus on short-term questions?

Politicians and negotiators often tend to adjourn important topics related to climate change. This problem is related to terms of office of politicians, and short-term poll outcomes. In order to remediate this, governments could nominate a delegate to represent their long-term interests (for example a young citizen elected or designated by local associations).

C) How could the negotiations be “regionalized”?

Whether the issue is climate, deforestation or local pollution, the decisions and outcomes of negotiations should be implemented for regions and not countries, thus reinforcing the cooperation of the individual countries. In the case of Kyoto, this would mean negotiation by area, and then negotiation within the defined areas to attribute certain carbon reduction targets to each state. The main limits and difficulties of this model would first be to define the regional areas: which legitimacy, which efficiency for these areas? And how to decide their creation (need for a specific UN agreement)?

To implement this hypothesis, the simulation structure (contact groups, meetings schedule…) should be re-organized by taking into account:

- Geo-economic unions like the ASEAN, the European Union or the Mercosur

-  Common ecologic issues and interests such as deforestation.

D) How could one envisage organizing negotiations through “aggregated interest groups”?

NB: This hypothesis is the most complex to implement. It necessitates a well-organised and large secretariat.  

In order to make negotiations more efficient and prevent deadlocks, one could reduce the number of participants so that for each topic, the different interest groups would be represented. International negotiations have so far been conducted by heterogeneous and inflexible global interest groups (G77, industrialized countries against developing countries…). So, how about bringing together stakeholders in homogenous and flexible thematic interest groups?

States would have to – for each theme negotiated – pick a group that would then represent them in the negotiating process concerning that precise issue. The members of each group would hence differ from one theme to another and for each issue several homogenous interest groups would be created. The right to vote would, however, remain with each individual state who would be invited to validate the negotiating results obtained by the thematic interest groups.

To implement this hypothesis, the simulation structure (contact groups, meetings schedule…) should be re-organized by taking into account specific issues, which can explode conventional interest groups like the G77.  For instance instead of organizing one unique meeting to negotiate a World Environmental Agency, organize one meeting for its mandate, one for its funding…

E) How transparency can be reinforced by publicizing negotiation meetings?

Delegates usually negotiate behind closed doors with the single pressure of their national mandate. In order to restore a balance of pressure, civil society could be allowed to attend every meeting and to speak (at least once). We can try to make the negotiations transparent and public by allowing some journalists to attend, record and broadcast all the meetings.

Don’t forget to send us:

-          hypothesis chosen + justification

-          list of the delegations

The full document can be found here, thanks to Paris+20.

Yours sustainably

MyCity+20

/Any question regarding this post? contact mycityplus20@gmail.com

Framework for the Rio+20 Simulation: Delegation Details

We ask each MyCity+20 project to share this common framework so that the results can be consistent and comparable. Do feel free to alter it according to your preferences, but don’t forget to let us know the reasons behind that!

This post is dedicated to the delegations to be represented and it will be followed by another one on scenario set-ups.

Since the simulations are organized with a limited budget and resources, every state cannot be represented. Therefore, countries have been chosen for their specific group characteristics.

1. Mandatory States delegations:

- One delegation for the host country (i.e. your country)

- Brazil, China, India, South Africa

- European Union (if you have enough participants you can represent some specific European countries)

- United States, Japan, Australia

- Small Island Developing States (Caribbean and Pacific Islands)

- Saudi Arabia (to represent the OPEP)

- Two least Developed countries.

- Bolivia (to represent countries which disagree with the current international system and with the concept of  Green Economy).

2. Mandatory non-States delegations:

- Bretton-Wood Institutions: if enough participants you can form two delegations, if not, then one delegation with at least one representative of each institution.

- UNEP/UNDP (one delegation with at least one member for each program)

- A scientific delegation (one delegation with at least one member for each group)

- Major Groups

- Journalists: it’s strongly advised to ask for the local/university media to cover the event as if it was not a simulation

2a. Presidency: 

The simulation conference has to be presided by Brazil. The host country (your country) should take the vice-presidency.

The president has to be active, leading the negotiation process, and stimulating the different delegations. He has to be part of the Brazilian delegation, according to the RIO+20 organization, but the vice president of your simulation has to be from the delegation of your country, highlighting the national commitment of youths.

2.b Secretariat:  

The role of the secretariat is to write the first document of negotiation which should be as neutral as possible. It can include articles which are proposed by certain groups, but should try to include the perspectives of all delegations.

After this document is ‘published’, i.e. presented to the delegations, they are allowed to make amendments. These should then be integrated into ‘zero draft’ to form draft 1. It also has to decide how to frame the contact groups.Then, the final draft, which will be the basis of your simulation of the conference, has to be published with the results of the Preparatory Committee. The secretariat may adjust its contact groups. During the simulation, the secretariat is not directly involved in the negotiation process, but has to moderate the debate and add into the draft’s final modifications. 

 In case you are running the simulation with highschool students, we suggest to have adults helping out the Secretariat.

3. Optional delegations: (examples)

- Venezuela (as part of the bolivarian doctrine) Ecuador

- Russia

- Singapore: especially in testing a scenario related to cities

- Another African Country like Ghana, or a really poor country such as Liberia

- Politically sensitive country (thinking to the Arab Spring) like Iran or Egypt

- South East Asia (Indonesia, Philippines…)

How many people per delegation?

We recommend:

- At least 3 students for each State delegation

- At least 2 students for the IMF, World Bank and UNEP/UNDP delegations

- At least 3 students for the scientific delegation

- At least 9 students in the Major Groups delegation

- At least 2 journalists

- At least 3 secretariat members.

TOTAL (approx):  45 Students for States delegations +20 Students for non-States delegations = 65 players.

These figures are indicative and aim at providing us a basis for future comparison of the outcomes of each simulation. The important point is to let us know your plans.

The full document can be found here, thanks to Paris+20.

Yours sustainably

MyCity+20

/Any question regarding this post ? contact mycityplus20@gmail.com