"The Future We Don't Want"

The Secretariat’s mandate to chair negotiations officially ended the night of June 15th. The delegates, however, failed to reach agreements on the outcome document by this deadline. Therefore, Secretariat’s work has been passed over to the Brazilian government so that the negations may continue. This means that a once 200+ page document, which took delegations and government 6 months to negotiate, has been consolidated by the Brazilian gov’t in about two days!

 While all previously agreed paragraphs still remain in the Brazilian text, the contested paragraphs have been reduced to their lowest common denominator, leaving heads of state a soft, empty document to sign at the termination of the conference. If you’re frustrated and outraged by this, you’re not alone. You and the 18,000 civil society members here are disappointed in the leadership at this conference and their failure to deliver the future we want. I sat in on a Major Group press conference about the new Brazilian negotiating text and their message was loud and clear: the voice of civil society is not represented in the text. In reaction to the new text and the poor performance of the delegations, the NGO major group has started a petition called, ‘The future we don’t want’ (the official document is title 'The Future We Want." 600 people have signed it so far. See the link below- I hope you will sign it to!!

http://www.ejolt.org/2012/06/petition-the-future-we-dont-want/

 --Julianna Lord