ABSTRACT
June 23 and the planet continues its slow decline, unimpressed by the sustainable development summit that has just finished in Rio. Yet another United Nation (UN) mega-conference ends in disappointment, the low expectations fully justified. When the UN decided to hold this conference, there was no particular reason for it except that the twentieth anniversary of the original Earth Summit was looming. Despite adding extra negotiating sessions, only about one-seventh of the draft outcome document was agreed before the delegates assembled in Rio. It is, short-sighted to see Rio only through the lens of the official process and the conference in which it culminated. The vast majority of the participants did not come for that; certainly, they hoped that by some miracle Rio would prove to be a game-changer, but they came for something else. Every issue involving equity in the Rio process was contentious, and none of them was resolved except by draining the language of all genuine content.
