Uncertainty clogs Rio+20 talks

RIO DE JANEIRO – Negotiations toward a new global agreement to protect the environment, to be put to a summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, next week, are set to go into overtime, officials said at the United Nations conference here on Friday. 

The document, meant to reconcile economic growth with poverty eradication and environmental protection, will be hotly debated by 116 world leaders at the official Rio+20 summit on June 20-22, following this week’s conference.

Talks on the outcome document entered their final day on Friday with agreement on only 28 percent of the 80-page text, U.N. sources said.

The Conference on Sustainable Development is the 20-year follow-up to the Earth Summit, where U.N. members made historic agreements to combat climate change, wildlife loss and desertification.

The president of Costa Rica, Laura Chinchilla, will travel to Brazil Tuesday, June 19, to attend the summit. On Wednesday, she will be the first speaker of the second part of the forum, where she will share Costa Rica’s experience as a “pioneer in the investment of services that protect the environmental diversity as natural capital,” officials confirmed.