ABSTRACT
The United States (US) Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Earth Summit who saw little new commitments to action in the final text that was adopted by the heads of states and governments and their senior officials. The biggest battle of negotiations in Rio was to get developed countries, especially the US, to renew the original Rio principles on environment and development adopted at the historic 1992 Earth Summit. Some developed countries, especially the US, resisted affirming the Rio principles and especially common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR). For developing countries, the reaffirmation of Rio plus a mention of CBDR was a necessity; without this reaffirmation, the summit would have been a disaster. Some developed countries have argued that the absence of the mention of equity and CBDR means that all Parties have to take on similar levels of commitments in a future climate regime, unlike the Kyoto Protocol.
