EM Coverage Of Rio +20

The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development officially launched yesterday, with preliminary talks set to wrap up on Friday, June 15, and high-level talks to begin next Wednesday and run through Friday, June 22. Here’s a look at some of the meetings we’ll be following.

14 June 2012 | RIO DE JANEIRO | Brazil | The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) officially launched here yesterday, with preliminary talks set to wrap up on Friday, June 15, and high-level talks to begin next Wednesday, June 20, and run through Friday, June 22. We’ll be focusing most of our attention on a few key side events and press conferences that we feel are most relevant to payments for ecosystem services and indigenous rights.

The first takes place on Monday, June 18, and examines the latest developments in Google’s ongoing effort to provide cost-effective tools for data collection and mapping – activities identified as essential under the Rio+20 agenda. The event is organized by Google Earth Outreach, with support from Imazon (Amazon Institute of People and the Environment), the World Resources Institute, Forest Trends (publisher of Ecosystem Marketplace), Metareila, the Institute for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of Amazonas (Idesam), the Governor’s Climate and Forests Taskforce, Fundacao Amazonas Sustentavel, Alianca da Terra, Equipe de Conservacao da Amazonia (ECAM), the Jane Goodall Institute, and the Global Canopy Programme.

The second takes place on Tuesday, June 19, and involves an update on Code REDD, which is a campaign launched late last year by Wildlife Works to save the world’s threatened forests by promoting corporate demand for high quality carbon offsets. This event picks up a theme that emerged at Carbon Expo in Cologne, Germany – namely, the need to educate the corporate sector on both the economics of climate change and the role that offsetting can play in helping companies achieve carbon neutrality.

Almir Surui, Chief of the Paiter Surui Tribe and Beto Borges, Director of Forest Trends’ Communities and Markets Initiative, will participate in a panel to discuss the Code REDD initiative as a platform for more effective collaboration between corporate offset buyers, REDD project developers, indigenous forest owners, governments, and other actors to address global climate change challenges.

There are plenty of events beyond these two, as you can see here, and we’ll try to bring additional coverage as best we can.