The InterDependent

BRUSSELS — When world environment ministers gather in Nairobi to mark the 40th anniversary of the UN Environment Program this week, their focus is likely to be on another international meeting four months and half a world away: the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, nicknamed Rio+20. The European Union’s environment commissioner, Janez Potočnik, arrived in Kenya with his proposed “green roadmap” for the Brazil summit, offering promises of leadership on sustainable global development and more money to help developing nations.

“I will be testing the waters in Nairobi,” Potočnik told journalists on Friday before his departure to for that city. “What [the EU] want[s] from Rio is a global roadmap towards a green economy” complete with national and international commitments and clear timelines.

A view of delegates at the ministerial dialogue on “Moving towards Sustainable Development Expectations” ahead of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 2012. UN Photo/Mark Garten

European countries have long taken a lead on environmental issues at the global level, and this year will be no exception, regardless of whether Potočnik’s proposal sets the agenda. The EU is collectively the largest aid donor, providing more than 55 billion Euros ($73 billion) in 2010, or 56 percent of the total.

Still, this year, the EU is facing real questions about just how much attention—and money—the continent can devote to Rio+20. Preoccupied by a debt crisis and facing months, if not years, of stagnant growth projections, many of Europe’s economies are cash-strapped, and nations could be reluctant to ante up more for aid. Germany and other richer EU countries are already bankrolling a 500 million Euro insurance fund to protect Greece from collapse and insulate Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain from staggering debt loads.

Country leaders attending the Rio Summit may even have to start to look elsewhere for aid, says Farooq Ullah, policy chief at the Stakeholder Forum, an environmental advocacy organization in London. He advocates filling the aid gap with savings from cutting fossil fuels subsidies—which the UN estimates cost more than $300 billion annually—and a tax on financial transactions. “If there is money to bail out the banks, I hope some will be made available to address some of these issues,” Ullah said in an interview Monday.

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The European Commission—the EU’s executive arm—unveiled its Agenda for Change in October, laying out priorities for the Rio summit. It includes proposals to pump foreign aid into sustainable growth and energy access. At a meeting in Brussels on February 21, European finance ministers are expected to back commitments made at the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit to help raise $100 billion so developing countries can adjust to climate change.

The EU also wants to leave Rio with an agreement to strengthen the UNEP, giving it more money and visibility by putting it on par with the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization in the UN hierarchy.

Others are pushing even more ambitious goals. Sir Graham Watson, a British member of the European Parliament, said the EU’s focus at Rio should be to get the UN’s 193 members to agree on binding commitments for sustainable development. “We want accountable targets to come out of the summit, and I would like to see as part of this an end to environmentally harmfully subsidies and by that I mean the subsidies that we effectively pay to the oil and gas industries,” said Watson, who serves on the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

Potočnik, the EU commissioner, also wants to leave Rio with “targets, time frames and political direction” for his priorities: providing electricity to millions of people in developing countries through renewable resources, boosting water efficiency, preserving ecosystems, protecting the oceans and creating a “zero-waste economy.”

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But such promises have been heard in the past, and there are doubts about how serious they are now. Studies by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Brussels-based AidWatch coalition showed that Europe would fall well short of its aid commitments of 0.7% of gross national income annually by 2015, with some forecasts showing the actual figure will be closer to 0.45 percent. Similar problems also plague the United States, another major donor, and despite its record $30.2 billion in 2010, it accounted for 0.21% of GNI.

Even if they are willing to put in the cash to help others, there are doubts about whether developed nations mired in domestic economic and financial problems can commit to a radical restructuring of their own fossil-fuel driven economies.

Many climate watchers, including the independent European Science Foundation (ESF), are now warning that global inaction could be on the docket for Brazil. In a new report, the foundation notes with alarm that despite two decades of research showing worsening climate change, land degradation, deforestation, biodiversity loss and declines in water quality, world leaders have failed to address the challenges.

There are no signs yet that this time will be any different, especially since in many ways, the global economic context is worse. Speaking to journalists on Friday, Potočnik conceded that the obstacles to getting concrete goals and outcomes in Rio are substantial, particularly given that he often fails to rally the EU’s 27 states to support environmental policies, including over whether to set binding energy efficiency targets.

“If you think that at times I am not frustrated, you are mistaken,” he said.

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Despite the challenges, the Stakeholder Forum’s Ullah says European countries still see a need for commitment to a long-term agenda at Rio. Denmark, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency through 30 June, certainly takes this view.

And Europe will not be alone in pressing for action at Rio this time. Emerging economies are increasingly seeing environmental issues as a priority for their long-term prospects. Officials in China warned of mounting water supply challenges on Sunday, for example. Other emerging economies like India and conference host Brazil are also likely to be at the forefront of talks at Rio. Indonesia, Mexico and Switzerland have also been active in preparatory negotiations, Ullah said.

“We’ve already seen quite a large shift in the geo-political powerhouses,” he said, noting that the Group of 77 developing countries plan to negotiate as a bloc at Rio. “It’s not just the simple north-south divide anymore.”