Panel including Leonardo DiCaprio, Linkin Park and Christiana Figueres to judge video competition for Rio+20 earth summit.
It's not often 12-year-old girls address world leaders at international summits. But that was just what happened two decades ago when Severn Suzuki admonished delegates at the original Rio Earth summit for failing to address the world's environmental and social problems:
Achim Steiner, the UN Environment Programme's boss, fears for our future. But it is not too late.
HOW CAN WE MEASURE PROGRESS?
EARTH DEBATES – FLAGSHIP EVENT SERIES IN PREPARATION OF RIO+20
London – 22nd February, 2012 – Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a universal measure of a country’s economic activity and output, yet it takes no account of the appreciation or deprecation of a country’s building infrastructure, or of the condition of its natural resources and the ecosystem services provided by the environment, such as crop pollination. Furthermore, GDP provides no measure of the health, wealth, or wellbeing of a country’s population, or how these are distributed across society.
European leaders in Brussels agree on bold agenda for sustainable growth and energy access in global south, but critics are wary of promises on aid funding.
What might the Rio+20 summit deliver?
We have a little more idea now, following publication of the "zero draft" outcome document for the June summit.
The Brazilian government is likely to move the dates of Rio+20, as a clash with the UK Royal Jubilee threatens to keep leaders away.
The meeting, organised by the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI), was held in a conference centre across the road from where Occupy DC protesters were camped out, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement.