Review of the civil society “People’s Summit” and the ecumenical and inter-religious space designated as “Religions for Rights” at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development also known as Rio+20.

World Council of Churches (WCC) participants in the Rio+20 Conference have joined a broad religious coalition in rejecting the official outcome document of the United Nations-sponsored event. “Renowned environmental scientists are saying that practically nothing happened between 1992 and 2012 in terms of public policy and global commitment,” observed Professor Leonard Boff, best-selling Brazilian author and co-founder of Latin American [...]

EKD-Bevollmächtigter ist enttäuscht von den Ergebnissen des Gipfels Der Bevollmächtigte des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD) bei der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und der Europäischen Union, Prälat Bernhard Felmberg, ist enttäuscht von den Ergebnissen des „Rio +20“-Gipfels. Das eigentliche Ziel des Gipfels, die vor 20 Jahren verabschiedeten Prinzipien weiterzuentwickeln und umzusetzen, sei nicht erreicht worden, kritisierte Felmberg am heutigen Montag [...]

Three major British Churches have voiced their disappointment that the Rio+20 Earth Summit has not made progress on the environmental challenges that face the global community. The Methodist Church, United Reformed Church and Baptist Union of Great Britain say that world leaders have largely repeated previous climate pledges, rather than pressing forward. They stress that the pledges in the summit [...]

Lack of progress at the Rio+20 conference towards a sustainable future for humankind was redeemed in small part by agreement that new goals must be set towards that end, says Christian Aid. With the lack of vision coming from the conference, the UK commitment to help lead international work on the new Sustainable Development Goals which will determine the direction [...]

Governments have squandered a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to make significant advances towards a greener, fairer future for the planet and its people, says ACT Alliance as the Rio+20 summit concludes in Brazil. While the “Future We Want” outcome document represents a consensus of all countries in the world and gives a fair amount of focus on important issues required for sustainable [...]

Bewegung für nachhaltige Entwicklung muss von unten kommen Die evangelischen Hilfswerke “Brot für die Welt” und Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (EED) haben das Ergebnis der Rio+20-Konferenz kritisiert. Die Abschlusserklärung bedeute keinen Rückenwind im Kampf gegen Armut, Hunger und Umweltzerstörung. Politischer Druck für Veränderung müsse ab jetzt noch stärker von der Zivilgesellschaft weltweit ausgehen, nur so sei das notwendige soziale, ökologische und wirtschaftliche [...]

Governments have failed to take the bold steps necessary to safeguard the health of the planet and promote achievable and sustainable solutions to eradicate chronic hunger, concludes the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) as the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) ends today. Whilst the final conference outcome document, “Our Common Vision”, acknowledges and reaffirms the right of everyone to [...]

As world leaders gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), churches and related organizations are working for the adoption of fundamentally different approaches to food production and consumption. The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance (EAA) and its member organizations are calling on world leaders to invest in agro-ecological production methods in harmony with nature, [...]

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has been playing an active role in the two major events that are taking place in Rio from 12 to 23 June: the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD), also known as Rio+20, and the People’s Summit. The People’s Summit is an open-invitation event that is gathering thousands of representatives of civil society [...]