Updated June 21, 2012 07:09:08
United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has opened the Rio+20 summit in Brazil with a warning that time is running out to act on climate change.
The conference brings together delegates from 193 countries, including 86 heads of government - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard among them.
Mr Ban says he is hopeful an agreement on sustainable development is in reach.
"Rio+20 is not an end, but a beginning," he said.
"It is time for all of us to think globally and long-term, beginning here now in Rio for time is not on our side."
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff welcomed world leaders to a rainy Rio de Janeiro amid criticism that the three-day summit is already falling far short of its promise to establish clear goals for sustainable development.
Before the official start of the event, known as Rio+20 because of the landmark Earth Summit in the city two decades ago, Brazil convinced visiting delegations to finalise a draft declaration for their leaders.
But many delegations and summit organisers, as well as outraged environmentalists and activist groups, are lambasting the document as weak.
"Let me be frank, our efforts have not lived up to the measure of the challenge," Mr Ban said.
"Nature does not wait. Nature does not negotiate with human beings."
The draft document, finalised on Tuesday, laid out aspirations, rather than mandatory goals, on issues like food security, water, and energy.
It also called for countries to pursue so-called "sustainable development goals," a vague set of UN objectives built around the environment, economic growth and social inclusion.
Many of those who agreed upon the draft, however, say it was stripped of vital specifics.
"I was disappointed that we did not go further," Britain's deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said.
Despite the presence of the French president and the Russian and Chinese prime ministers, several other high-profile leaders are missing, including United States president Barack Obama and Germany's Angela Merkel.
Compared with the original Earth Summit, which led to historic decisions on biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions, organisers say this summit is only the beginning of a new goal-setting process for global development.
Meanwhile, demonstrators have made their displeasure known.
Outside the summit, being hosted at a gargantuan series of warehouse-like conference halls in the strip mall-filled suburbs of southern Rio, environmental activists, political parties, and others marched through steady drizzle and called for bold action.
Earlier this week, bare-breasted feminists marched through the city centre and Amazonian tribesmen, donning war paint and arrows, descended upon Brazil's national development bank, which is financing dams and other controversial infrastructure projects in the Amazon rainforest.
Diplomats said Brazil's push for a draft document had opposing outcomes.
While it forced delegations to focus and come to an agreement, it may have prematurely shut the door on bolder action by leaders when they arrive.
That, they added, leaves little leeway for the draft to improve before a final pronouncement.
"Everybody has things that they have given up in the document in one way or the other," said Todd Stern, US special envoy on climate change.
"This is the thread that once you start pulling on it, it unravels quickly."
ABC/Reuters
Topics: climate-change, world-politics, brazil
First posted June 21, 2012 07:01:51