Thirty years ago, on this day, September 21, 1993, the well-meaning but being-used people running the “Partnerships for Change” summit defended themselves from attack.
MANCHESTER, England — Organizers of a world environment summit designed as a sequel to the Rio Earth Summit Tuesday dismissed criticism that the international conference was producing more hot air than hard results.
Conference chairman Martin Holdgate defended the goal of the Partnerships for Change summit in Manchester, saying its purpose was to find practical solutions to international environment problems.
Haycock, G. 1993. Environment summit not flawed, say organizers
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 357ppm. As of 2023 it is 423ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that at the 1992 Earth Summit UK Prime Minister John Major had offered to host the follow-up conference. This then got split in two, with the “Partnerships for Change” thing, and then a Global Forum supposed to happen in June of the following year (it almost didn’t). Partnerships for Change was rendered effectively useless because the UNFCCC was ratified more quickly than had been expected and it was therefore obvious that the actual negotiations were going to start relatively soon (as they did in Berlin in March April of 1995).
Fun facts – at this Partnerships for Change someone stole the videotape of John Major’s welcome, and also John Gummer (Lord Deben to you) was herded onto a tram and not allowed off.
What I think we can learn from this – just variations of the circle jerk.
Whether or not any given meeting “achieved” its objectives or not is neither here nor there. It comes down to implementation by social movements and civil society organisations that can monitor implementation. Not got those? Then you are left with the usual boom and bust cycle and So It Goes.
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What happened next –
is that partnerships to change was quickly forgotten the global forum all so quickly forgotten and the cop process began in earnest.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..
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