Rio Meeting Can Still Produce a Key Climate Outcome

For the rest of this week over 100 global leaders, and more countries, converge on Rio de Janeiro for the Rio+20 Earth Summit. As of Tuesday a negotiated text was released which so far is receiving dismal reviews as watered down and lacking in any concrete commitments or timetables for outcomes. If the meeting is considered a failure, or results only in a laundry list of promises, who is to blame? Can anything be done to salvage this global opportunity?

Already the finger pointing has begun. Some are blaming the leaders who didn’t attend, including President Obama, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, and Prime Minister Cameron of the U.K. Others are blaming Ban Ki-moon and the U.N. establishment for not pushing harder on an aggressive agenda. And many others will fault the Brazilians, who as the host, have relatively greater authority at the meeting and shaped the final negotiated text.

The above excerpt was originally published in The Hill's Congress Blog. Click here to view the full article.

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