Government negotiators from 188 nations have failed in their attempt to find a breakthrough at the United Nations conference on sustainable development. The Secretary-General of the Rio+20 environmental summit, Sha Zukang summed up the three-day summit as an outcome that makes nobody happy. Negotiators who struggled for months to hammer out a more ambitious final document ended up agreeing on a proposal that makes virtually no progress beyond what was signed at the original 1992 Earth Summit. The Executive Director of the Geneva-based South Centre and a member of the UN Committee on Development Policy, Martin Khor, says the group has sunk so low in its expectations that reaffirming what was done 20 years ago is now considered a success. Activists were hoping the leaders would … [Read more...]