WWF Seeking To Quash Sustainable Development At Rio
WWF Seeking To Quash Sustainable Development At Rio
Melbourne – Pro-development NGO, World Growth, has released a report issuing a warning over the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) ambitions at the upcoming Rio+20 Conference. World Growth’s report – Road to Rio: How WWF’s Green Economy Strategy Would Impoverish The Poor – warns against WWF’s goal of replacing ‘sustainable development’ with the ‘green economy’. The report draws attention to WWF’s efforts to elevate environmental considerations above economic or social considerations – contrary to the accepted definition of sustainable development, which treats all three considerations equally. The report concludes that while developing nations will continue to support the traditional definition of sustainable development, WWF will invariably seek to push a ‘green economy’ through their misuse of sustainable standards and certification schemes.
World Growth Chairman, Ambassador Alan Oxley released the following statement:
“WWF
earlier this month released its ‘Living Planet Report’
which argues that we would somehow need two Planet Earths by
2030 to sustain human activity. This unsubstantiated
viewpoint belittles the developing world’s poor who have
benefited from economic development to raise living
standards.
“At a time when the
global economy is struggling and all nations have recognised
the need to increase the level of free trade to stimulate
the global economy, WWF is taking a proposition to the
Rio+20 Conference which will make free trade and economic
growth subservient to the environment. The European
Commission has called for the “reform of international
sustainable governance” to promote a ‘green economy’.
That is, global governance for the promotion of
environmental standards. WWF also argues for the inclusion
of a monetary value on natural resources, or ‘natural
capital’, to be included in figures on economic growth.
This too is a mechanism to ensure that poverty alleviation
comes second to environmentalism.
“This has been a long-term goal of WWF. It has
consistently argued for the need to temper or control free
trade agreements with environmental standards. By seeking
to redefine the core goal of the United Nations Conference
on Sustainable Development as the ‘green economy’, WWF
is seeking to restrain free trade.
“Developing nations and many non-governmental
organisations do not share WWF’s disdain for economic
growth and poverty alleviation. The proposition will not be
endorsed at the Rio+20 Conference. However, businesses and
governments alike must be aware that WWF will continue to
push these standards through their certification and
sustainability standards. Certification schemes such as the
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and the Forest
Stewardship Council aim to control the supply chain and
enforce their environmental standards as conditions of
trade.
“WWF’s barriers to trade
will prove to be highly detrimental not only to those living
in developing nations, but also to the developed world as
they struggle to emerge from the current economic
downturn.”
Click here to read the World Growth report – Road to Rio: How WWF’s Green Economy Strategy Would Impoverish The Poor.
ENDS