'Agreement reached' at Rio summit

19 June 2012 Last updated at 20:36 GMT By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News, Rio de Janeiro

Negotiators have agreed a text to be approved by world leaders meeting this week in Rio at a summit intended to put society on a more sustainable path.

Environmental groups and charities working on poverty issues believe the agreement is far too weak.

The Rio+20 gathering comes 20 years after the Earth Summit, also held in the Brazilian city.

The text has yet to be signed off by heads of government and ministers, but it seems that no changes will be made.

The European Union was the group most unhappy with what they saw as the low level of ambition in the text.

But Danish Environment Minister Ida Auken told BBC News that she believed it would be signed off.

"The EU would have liked to see a much more concrete and ambitious outcome, so in that respect I'm not happy with it," she said.

"However, we managed to get the green economy on the agenda, and so I think we have a strong foundation for this vision that can drive civil society and the private sector to work in the same direction, to understand that environment and [that] the social side must be integrated into the heart of the economy."

As the current holders of the EU presidency, Denmark has been the most strident critic of the lack of ambition in the text that was issued by the Brazilian host government last Friday and discussed over the weekend.

Dismay

Environmental and developmental groups are dismayed by many aspects of the agreement.

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?Start Quote

This damp squib of a draft negotiating text makes it clear the Rio talks lack the firepower needed to solve the global emergency we're facing?

End Quote Craig Bennett Director of policy and campaigns, Friends of the Earth

In large part, it merely "reaffirms" commitments governments have made previously.

Activists mounted a huge Twitter campaign on Monday in an attempt to persuade governments to make a commitment to end fossil fuel subsidies.

However the final text reaffirms previous commitments to phase them out if they "harmful and inefficient", without setting a date.

There will be a limited upgrade for the UN Environment Programme. Corporations will be invited - but not mandated - to report on their environmental and social impact.

A process will be established leading to a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs), to come into affect in 2015 alongside extensions to the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The text calls for "urgent action" on unsustainable production and consumption, but it gives no detail, or a timetable, on how this can be achieved, and no clear direction as to how the world economy can be put on a greener path.

"This damp squib of a draft negotiating text makes it clear the Rio talks lack the firepower needed to solve the global emergency we're facing," said Friends of the Earth's director of policy and campaigns, Craig Bennett, in Rio.

"Developed countries have repeatedly failed to live safely within our planet's limits. Now they must wake up to the fact that until we fix our broken economic system we're just papering over the ever-widening cracks."

More than 100 world leaders are expected in Rio from Wednesday to attend the summit.

They include presidents and prime ministers from the large emerging economies, including China, India, Indonesia and South Africa.

But US President Barack Obama will not be there, and neither will UK Prime Minister David Cameron or German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who are all sending ministers in their places.

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• How able is the planet to meet increasing demand?
• In 1960, a little over half the planet's land, forests and
  fisheries were needed to meet human consumption.
• By the late 1970s, consumption was equal to one planet.
• By the first years of this century, one-and-a-half planets
  were needed to meet consumption.

  This deficit can only be met by the depletion of renewable
  resources and increased pollution.

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