7 days in Rio

I was in Rio for a week or so and it seemed to largely pass in a blur, this could have been a combination of the Rio nightlife, beaches, humidity, or coming hard up against, in the form of the Rio+20 Earth Summit, the working world. 

During my time in Rio I was based in a hostel far removed from such a world, a few blocks back from the beach in the laidback and surprisingly leafy Ipanema. When the weather is sunny and hot it's a myriad of the tanned and fit, and even more tanned and fitter on the white sands. 

Copacabana and Ipanema beaches

The Summit on the other hand was based in the ironically named, RioCentro, which in good traffic was about an hour out of the city in a swamp. I’ve been told it was built by the military dictatorship in 1977 as a stronghold and located so that if there was an uprising the military would have time to organise against the populace, although this doesn't appear to be a fact widely advertised. 

It was bemusing each day to share the free shuttle bus with suited and booted delegates staring wistfully out the window at Copacabana, Ipanema and lesser known beaches on the way to the conference.

While all the national leaders or delegates were in town for three days, the Summit actually commenced on June 13th, with an overwhelming list of side events to attend from 9am to 9pm each day put on by a host of NGOs and national governments.  In addition to these events there was a whole area dedicated to national pavilions. There was more Summit to be had than even the most diehard could ask for.  Three I picked at random give a flavour of the variety.

• The Delegation of the Republic of Armenia, Sustainable Development Index Methodology - Possible Options
• WWF, The financial Sector, agriculture, cattle ranking and Natural Capital: from Rio 92 to Rio +20 with a prospective vision of the Rio 5.
• The Rio de Janeiro State University, Culture The 4th Pillar of Sustainability.

My access to the Summit was as a delegate of the United Nations Association of Victoria which I was very grateful for. In terms of my role, I, as opposed to the vast majority of delegates, actually didn't have one, except for the never ending search for the perfect caipirinha.

Nick Clegg

The tension between by holiday and working life was highlighted when I awoke worse for wear one morning to an email that Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister of the UK would be at the UK Pavilion and could I attend to represent my firm Arup that had a display.  I’d previously declined the generous offer of standing by the display during my leave, but this seemed like an interesting opportunity. 

Donning my suit I headed to the Summit and with the hot and humid conditions combined with mine, I was soon sweltering. When Nick arrived it highlighted something that I've been vaguely aware of, shooting with my camera and mic makes it very difficult to meet people and take decent footage. So Nick passed within hugging distance of me and I never met him.  I liked his impromptu speech however lamenting the lack of vision within what was the draft text at the time. His speech constrasted strongly with the managed presentation by Julia Gillard for the Australian Delegation later that day.

This feels uncomfortably like work...

The tension between this experience and that at the hostel was highlighted later in the evening when I went for a drink with others from the hostel, who’d already been drinking for a while. All was good as I retired for the evening until just before falling asleep I realized one of the girls who was on the top bunk opposite me had bought home a guy. 

Trying to pretend this wasn’t happening I closed my eyes for a while, but gave up, looking across I realised it was the hostel owner, Chris.  This was pretty annoying as he sets the rules that there’s no guests in the dorms after hours. Eventually I looked over and caught the eye of the girl and all movement seemed to stop after that. As you can expect I didn’t get much sleep that evening. The next morning I subtly prompted Chris about the rules for guests in dorms. Duly embarrassed he was profusely apologetically then and for the days following, which was kind of awkward, and in the end gave me the nights accommodation for free and knocked off my laundry bills from the total bill. The day seemed to contrasts the differences between the two worlds I was wandering between.  

People's Summit

In addition to the Earth Summit I spent a few days at the People's Summit that was actually based in central Rio. There was a stark contrast between the vibrancy mixed with simmering anger of the mainly South American indigenous representatives at the People's Summit at a daily basis and the drawn and tired suits from all nationalities at the Earth Summit.

With the Summit over I spent my last day in Rio hiking up through rainforest and monkeys to Christ the Redeemer with an Irish guy who'd just flown in, a great hike that hardly no one does and a rewarding way to see the big man. 

In terms of Summit outcomes there seems to be almost universal disappointment from the major groups represented at the Outcome document. There is also suspicion regarding the prominence of the green economy and whether this is a trojan horse to continue to promote the current economic model. 


Those more pragmatically minded feel it's built on the previous Earth Summit text.  Personally I don't think it goes far enough, but then having worked for the national government and the private sector I can understand the outcome that has eventuated.