The start of bottom-up governance

The media center in the Rio+20, or the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, that was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was packed with hundreds of journalists for two days, yet few seemed to pay much attention to the two giant screens that broadcast live the speeches by leaders from about 130 countries.

It was mostly the kind of uninspiring speeches you hear time and again. On Friday these leaders, many coming a long way across the oceans, signed a 49-page document called The Future We Want, but the watered-down version of the original text is really a tiger without any teeth and is far from the actions needed to meet the urgency of a planet in crisis.

It is certainly not the kind of future most people want as leaders are not willing to be committed to major actions required for the sustainable development of human beings on Earth.