‘Greening’ of economy, a business ploy

Published on June 21, 2012

The so-called Green economy will intensify the plunder of the worlds remaining natural wealth and the privatization of critical services, technologies and products through Public-Private Partnerships and similar market-driven mechanisms. Frances Quimpo, Kaliakasan Partylist

By INA ALLECO R. SILVERIO Bulatlat.com

MANILA Hundreds of environmental activists in the Philippines held a protest action in front of the United States Embassy to show solidarity with peoples from other countries during the June 20 Global Day of Action. The Global Day of Action coincided with the opening of the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development. In Brazil, Filipino environmentalists, agrarian reform advocates, womens rights leaders and progressive economists also led parallel activities at the conference site in Rio de Janeiro.

The Rio+20 conference is the follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit also held in Rio de Janeiro that promoted the concept of Sustainable Development. The Agenda 21 was the summits resultant action plan, which was adopted by the 178 participating governments.

The groups led by the International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS) and Kalikasan Peoples Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE) challenged world leaders to reverse the prescribed natural resource and industry privatization and commercialization schemes packaged as the greening of key economic sectors, a business-as-usual approach that benefit top polluter nations led by the US.

Trying to save face after destroying global ecology

In a statement from Brazil where he is attending counterpart activities to Rio+20 Conference, Clemente Bautista, national coordinator of Kalikasan PNE, said the worlds advanced capitalist nations are trying to save face after 20 years of global ecological destruction and socio-economic crisis under the banner of sustainable development.

The green economy paradigm peddled in the United Nations has given nothing but public-private investments and other market-based mechanisms in reducing the ecological and carbon footprints of industries, he said. The transition to a Green Economy, according to its architects, calls for financing from international financial institutions, speculators, conditional loans and other market-driven forces. It is clear from our two decades of experience under the corporatization of such sectors as energy, water and mining that public development standards are never met when project implementers are profit-oriented, he said.

The activities are sponsored by Ibon International, Rights for Sustainability and Cupula dos Povos.

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‘Greening’ of economy, a business ploy