The „Rio 20 Plus“ Summit on sustainable development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is aimed at the formation of a treaty on the green planet, which should save millions of people from poverty. On the first day of the three-day gathering, 86 heads of state or government from all over the world, including Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić, agreed on a final document defining the sustainable development policy in the next 20 years. More from Jelica Tapušković.
The Rio summit was opened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki- Moom who emphasized that time was not on our side when it comes to a very long list of issues. The gathering is held 20 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio, when the countries promised to prevent climate changes, desert expansion and the loss of animal and plant species. Although the promise has not been fulfilled, this summit and the document to be adopted at the end are expected to specify and implement measures for the removal of numerous ecological problems affecting our planet. The main topics of the summit are green economy and poverty eradication and an institutional framework for sustainable development. Eight multilateral development banks have promised to set aside 175 billion dollars for financing sustainable traffic systems during the next decade as traffic has been found to be a source of exhaustion fumes with a greenhouse effect, whih are growing most rapidly. It has been emphasized that in the next twenty years some one billion people will move to urban areas, which is to result in traffic congestion, air contamination and a rise in the number of traffic accidents.
On the second day of the summit, Serbia organized a special gathering dedicated to present and forthcoming activities in the field of green economy and sustainable development in the Adriatic-Ionian region. The region includes the following countries besides Serbia: Italy, Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Albania and Greece. The gathering results from Serbia’s presidency over the Initiative and the agreements reached at a regional gathering in Belgrade in March this year. The minister of ecology, spatial planning, mining and energy, Oliver Dulić, said that, at a special gathering within the summit, Serbia would present a study in green economy and sustainable development in the fields of environment protection, recycling, renewable energy sources, sustainable agriculture and organic food production – fields which could provide 50,000 work positions.
Serbia has been recognized here as a country that has fully implemented the potentials and goals of green economy and will be presented as a successful example of how countries all over the world should develop their green economies, green economy having becoming a political programme to be supported by the UN, said Dulić.
On the third day of the summit, a final document on 49 pages is to be adopted, the draft version of which was adjusted after long negotiations because Brazil, as the summit delegates states, would not honour European objections. The EU and some South American delegates said that there was disharmony on the measures required for the protection of oceans and on the funds aimed at promoting green development in poor countries. By the way, the document points to numerous issue worldwide and to methods and plans of resolving them.