Zero Draft Text Ammendments for Consideration
Stakeholder Forum with its partners have put together some suggestions, which we would like governments to consider as they take part in this session of Rio+20 and in preparation for their inputs to the 17th of February deadline.
Stakeholder Forum’s top 15 text amendments
Section I. Preamble/Stage setting
Para 3: We are committed to making every effort to accelerate progress in achieving the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, thus improving the lives of the poorest people [add: whilst establishing new goals that aim to provide a safe operating space for humanity as well as recognizing social boundaries.]
Para 4, bis: [add: We are aware that the current production and consumption patterns of the global population undermine the carrying capacity of the planet. We urgently need to reverse the trend of ever growing natural resource use and emissions/discharges of disturbing pollutants in air, water and soil, until we reach a sustainable level. This absolute reduction of natural resource use and discharges needs to be achieved in a socially fair manner, eradicating poverty and achieving more equity and social fairness across the planet.]
Section II. Renewing Political Commitment
Para 17: We underscore that a fundamental prerequisite for the achievement of sustainable development is broad public participation in decision-making [add: including access to justice, as called for by Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration]. Sustainable development requires major groups [add: and all stakeholders] – women, children and youth, indigenous peoples, non-governmental organisations, local authorities, workers and trade unions, business and industry, the scientific and technological community, and farmers – to play a meaningful role at all levels. It is important to enable all members of civil society to be actively engaged in sustainable development by incorporating their specific knowledge and practical know-how into national and local policy making. In this regard, we also acknowledge the role of national parliaments in furthering sustainable development.
Para 24: We call for [add: the UNGA to establish an Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a United Nations Convention] which would address a global policy framework requiring all listed and large private companies to [add: implement] [delete: consider] sustainability issues [add: into their management and throughout their supply chains], to integrate sustainability information within the reporting cycle.
Section III. Green Economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication
Para 37, bis: Given the importance of large pools of private and sovereign capital to enable the transition to sustainable development, we call on the following entities to explore a range of measures to apply sustainable development criteria, including:
•The boards of Sovereign Wealth Funds and of national and international public pension funds, as well as other major financial institutions in their investment decisions;
•Governments, or stock market regulators to pass or revise regulations in order to encourage their use;
•Stock exchanges to facilitate their application in the analysis of companies and their reports on compliance;
•Governments to develop incentives and create an enabling environment by making Boards of Directors attentive to them (fiduciary duty);
•Governments and credit rating agencies should integrate them in their respective risk assessments (taken from the Global Sustainability Report); and
•The UN should mandate a process to set up an Inter-governmental credit rating agency.
To read all the ammendments click here
