Discord in the UN on "Green Economy"

In my writings, I generally tend to be critical. However In this case, I have some good, positive news to report. While there are some negative aspects, in total the news is good..

The United Nations has recently held a UN Conference on Sustainable Development. It is said to commemorate and build on a continuation of the 1992 Earth Summit, which was held in Rio de Janeiro and brought together scores of global leaders who signed the world's first treaties on climate change and biodiversity protection.

The article, which I am now using as reference is contained in the May 30 issue of C&E News. The recent UN Conference was held in New York City in May. UN Chief Ban said the UN is promoting a "green economy development through growth in income, decent work and poverty eradication". A noble statement. However in addressing the details, there was considerable disagreement.

The Conference attendees included an organization called the G-77. Its membership is 30 developing countries. The UN program is to have developed countries countries, such as the US, contribute substantial funds, in order to develop the "green economy". One would expect that the G-77 would easily accept this program. However, surprisingly they objected to it, but only indirectly. They generally did not agree to use of the phrase "green economy". The stated reason was that there was no agreed-on definition.

Another surprising statement came from the the US Representative John Matuszak, Chief of the US State Department's Sustainable Development and Multilateral Affairs Division. He works for Obama and yet made the statement that "the US, as with many other countries, is actively cutting budgets to reduce our deficit and cannot make new financial commitments or support costly new initiatives". Instead, he suggested that "governments, the private sector and others must engage to leverage the lack of resources in order to help the developing world on sustainable development issues". I like the first part but have less enthusiasm for the second part.

The delegate from India shed some light on the thinking of the G.-77 by saying that "requirements for green products may distort free flow of global trade and erect barriers to some products. Importing countries' environmental standards, subsidies, and market incentives for green goods could limit the ability of developing countries that export to achieve their sustainability goals".

Finally, some developing countries are opposed to significantly lower emissions of carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, Cheryl Hogue has shown her bias by volunteering that she believes carbon dioxide to be a major greenhouse gas, which it is not.

This is all good news, in that country leaders are starting to recognize that the situation is more complex than a simple hand-out and there could be disadvantages in controlling carbon dioxide emissions, without even considering that it is not necessary.