The shadow over CSD

CSD 18 has now ended. The first of the two-year cycle which, among other issues, reviewed progress on the 10 Year Framework of Programs (10YFP). Unfortunately I cannot report on any noteworthy successes or news. Competing with four other topics, the discussion on the 10YFP, in the modest number of hours allotted, tended to circle around the issue rather than confront it directly. What progress has taken place on the 2002 commitment to develop a “10 year framework of programs supporting national and regional initiatives promoting sustainable consumption and production?”

The most obvious answer to this question is that, after eight years there are no programs or framework supporting national and regional initiatives. The “implementation gap” that hovered like a specter over the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development continues to cast its shadow over the CSD.

There is a draft paper that discusses possibilities and categories of activities, but no actual programs or framework. Governments, when they did comment on this topic, mostly engaged in familiar exchanges that have been going on now for decades, but with few concrete points or proposals. It is easy to acknowledge how unsustainable consumption and production patterns are of “urgent concern” and that we all need to take responsible action. It is another to actually do the work of putting in place the policies and practices that results in concrete change.

Civil society’s role in this discussion on the 10YFP at CSD 18 was also less than noteworthy, with only a handful of NGOs sufficiently informed on the issue and the stakes. Unfortunately many of the NGOs engaged with sustainable production and consumption have been skeptical if not cynical about the CSD and Marrakech Process and did not bother to come to New York to confront the UN body with its commitments.

Most of the discussions about the 10YFP tended instead to focus not on progress implementing the 10YFP mandate , but to wander across a broad range of different concerns and opinions regarding “sustainable consumption.”  While such concerns might be addressed by the kinds of national and regional initiatives which the 10YFP is supposed to support, both governments and the Major Groups had obvious difficulties focusing on a common platform for advancing this.