An environmental report issued by an agency of the United Nations last month has some critics sounding the alarm, saying it is a clarion call for "global governance" over how the Earth is managed.
The report, “21 Issues for the 21st Century,” from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Foresight Process, is the culmination of a two-year deliberative process involving 22 core scientists. It is expected to receive considerable attention in the run-up to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held in Rio, Brazil, in June.
But its critics see an agenda lurking in its 60 pages, which call for a complete overhaul of how the world's food and water are created and distributed -- something the report says is “urgently needed” for the human race to keep feeding and hydrating itself safely.
“This is more utopianism, pie-in-the-sky pleading for ‘global governance,’ including what they acknowledge as ‘novel governance arrangements,’ including, ‘alliances between environmentalist and other civil society groups,’” charged Chris Horner, author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed, and a senior fellow for energy and environment at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington, D.C.
The Foresight Report suggests actions to save humanity from starvation, the overheating planet and the collapse of the world’s oceans -- options that include new “constitutional frameworks,” “international protocols” and a “shared vision” for land and water management that essentially rewire existing treaties and governments.
The State Dept. has already weighed in on many of the issues presented by the Foresight Panel in its own statement, titled “Sustainable Development for the Next Twenty Years United States Views on RIO+20.” Submitted to the U.N by the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OIES) in November, this policy vision makes it clear the State Dept. will back global government solutions -- whether they be in addressing the overfishing of the oceans, making national laws and regulations more transparent, addressing land and ocean-based pollution, or water management.
The U.S. also is wholly supportive of strengthening the UNEP as “a body through which governments can cooperate to recommend environmental policies, promote best practices, and build national capacity for governance, monitoring and assessment,” according to the vision statement.
Questions about the ability of nations to work with global bodies such as the U.N, and whether they should subscribe to transnational guidelines or mandates, will no doubt be a subject of concern in the run-up to the Rio summit.
The report, “21 Issues for the 21st Century,” from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Foresight Process, is the culmination of a two-year deliberative process involving 22 core scientists. It is expected to receive considerable attention in the run-up to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held in Rio, Brazil, in June.
But its critics see an agenda lurking in its 60 pages, which call for a complete overhaul of how the world's food and water are created and distributed -- something the report says is “urgently needed” for the human race to keep feeding and hydrating itself safely.
“This is more utopianism, pie-in-the-sky pleading for ‘global governance,’ including what they acknowledge as ‘novel governance arrangements,’ including, ‘alliances between environmentalist and other civil society groups,’” charged Chris Horner, author of Red Hot Lies: How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud and Deception to Keep You Misinformed, and a senior fellow for energy and environment at the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in Washington, D.C.
The Foresight Report suggests actions to save humanity from starvation, the overheating planet and the collapse of the world’s oceans -- options that include new “constitutional frameworks,” “international protocols” and a “shared vision” for land and water management that essentially rewire existing treaties and governments.
The State Dept. has already weighed in on many of the issues presented by the Foresight Panel in its own statement, titled “Sustainable Development for the Next Twenty Years United States Views on RIO+20.” Submitted to the U.N by the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OIES) in November, this policy vision makes it clear the State Dept. will back global government solutions -- whether they be in addressing the overfishing of the oceans, making national laws and regulations more transparent, addressing land and ocean-based pollution, or water management.
The U.S. also is wholly supportive of strengthening the UNEP as “a body through which governments can cooperate to recommend environmental policies, promote best practices, and build national capacity for governance, monitoring and assessment,” according to the vision statement.
Questions about the ability of nations to work with global bodies such as the U.N, and whether they should subscribe to transnational guidelines or mandates, will no doubt be a subject of concern in the run-up to the Rio summit.
