RIO DE JANEIRO – As the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development came to a close Friday with the approval of a highly controversial agreement by world governments, Organizing Partner Kiara Worth of the UN sustainability commission’s Major Group for Children and Youth was supposed to read a short statement on behalf of so-called “civil society” to the delegates.
But according to the young South African activist, she was told that there was no time — “essentially meaning that civil society has no voice here at the conference,” she said as representatives of governments and assorted dictatorships shuffled by with smiles on their faces. So instead of reading the speech to the planet’s “sustainability” dignitaries, she read it to The New American and answered a few questions.
Of course, critics of the UN — not to mention its unscientific environmental fear-mongering and continual power grabs — say the non-governmental organizations and radical activists present at the international conferences serve a crucial function. According to analysts, those groups and their criticisms about the UN’s alleged failure to do enough to “save the planet” help to advance the global institution’s agenda, partly by making the sweeping planetary agreements seem moderate by comparison.
The UN agenda, as The New American has documented extensively, includes the erosion of national sovereignty and the centralization of coercive power at the global level. Increasing control over the world’s resources and economy are high on the agenda as well. Those schemes took a giant step forward at Rio+20 tonight. But for the non-profit organizations participating in the summit, the leap was apparently not large enough. This was their reaction.
Watch the video of Kiara Worth’s statement and interview below.
(For more information about Rio+20, click here.)
