David R. Woollcombe, Peace Child International

If we learned one thing from our series of 30+ Rio+20 Youth Prepcoms in the course of 2011, it was that youth were angry that they had spent a lot of years in school – studying what their teachers told them to study – and the Rio+20 issues never came up. In 24 countries, students told us that our debates, cabarets, games, workshops were the first they’d heard of peak oil, the challenge of alternative energy, harmful subsidies, one-planet living etc. Many had been educated in so-called ‘good schools’ and ‘great universities’ – but none of this stuff had ever come up!

Pam Puntenney, UN CSD Education Caucus

Recognising the number of global environmental challenges and security issues, there is a need to improve the knowledge base of all stakeholders, particularly decision-makers on the interplay of human and natural systems, with an understanding of new opportunities for investment, new technologies, and innovations, among others.

M. K. Dorsey, Dartmouth College

The US President’s State of Union referenced energy policy 23 times and climate policy once. The White House still can, and must, lead the nation and the world on both climate change and energy policy. One place this can be done is on the road to the approaching Rio+20 Summit.

Staffan Nilsson, European Economic and Social Committee

The zero draft, which summarises key issues forming the basis of the Rio+20 final agreement is a good starting point for subsequent negotiations. But it still falls far short of the hopes and ambitions of organised civil society in Europe, for what could and should be achieved by the Rio process. We look to the European institutions - the Council, the Commission and the Parliament - to be equally resolute in pressing the case for a stronger and more purposeful programme to be created at Rio, and to give our European negotiators a powerful mandate to settle for nothing less.

Kirsty Schneeberger, Stakeholder Forum

There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. That idea is with us today.  That time is now.

Jacob Scherr, Global Strategy & Advocacy

It is the start of a new year and the time for making resolutions to change our ways.  Yet we all know how hard it is to give up old habits.  This reality was evidenced by the just released zero draft of the output document for the Rio+20 (Earth Summit). 

Emmanuel Prinet, Canadian Earth Summit Coalition

The Canadian Earth Summit Coalition put forward three high-leverage policies in its submission to the Compilation Document:

Fatima Rodrigo, NGO Representative at the United Nations, International Presentation Association of the Sisters of the Presentation

Our world is experiencing rapidly growing inequality, with 80% of the world’s population sharing a mere 30% of the world’s wealth. According to the International Labour Organisation, the income of just 1% of the world’s population (the 61 million persons) is equal to that of 56% (3.3 billion persons).