Rio+20 Summit - an "epic failure"

Photo from Rio+20 Summit (Reuters)

"The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development ended on Friday with rights groups and environmentalists calling it a hoax. The Rio+20 Summit, a 20-year follow-up of the 1992 Earth Summit, failed to impress anti-poverty activists and environmentalists who lambasted it as lacking clear ambition to end poverty and to protect the environment. "Rio will go down as the hoax summit. They came, they talked, they failed to act" said Barbara Stocking, chief executive, Oxfam, on Friday.  "Governments have embraced globalisation, but failed to govern it. The poorest people on earth are paying the highest price," she added." http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/355592/20120623/rio-20-earth-summit-environment-food-security.htm

Two quotes from the final day:

"This is an outcome that makes nobody happy. My job was to make everyone equally unhappy," said Sha Zukang, Secretary-General of the conference, nicely summing up the mood using classic Orwellian doublespeak!

"We saw anything of value in the early text getting removed one by one. What is left is the clear sense that the future we want is not one our leaders can actually deliver," said Greenpeace executive director Kumi Naidoo. "We now need to turn the anger people around the world are feeling into creative, thoughtful and meaningful action."

Here's a link to some colorful photos from the Rio Summit: 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2012/jun/19/rio-20-peoples-summit-in-pictures#/?picture=391817295&index=5