He then talked about the World Bank’s involvement in some official proposals to confront the global environmental threats: “The World Bank is one of the planet’s main environmental polluters. It has subsidized the use of fossil fuels, coal and oil exploitation, hydroelectric dams”, said Navarro.

CESTA’s chair said this in a press conference held by the organization on Monday, in the Salvadorean capital, San Salvador. The aim of the press conference was to issue some warnings and voice some concerns ahead of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (also called Rio+20), to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June.

“Several international organizations like Friends of the Earth International, La Via Campesina, have expressed our concern over the serious limitations of the meeting”, said Navarro. “Even though we believe that this is the most important international sphere, we see the United Nations is being co-opted by big transnational corporations”.

On May 10, Friends of the Earth International warned that the lobby of transnational corporations at the UN negotiations has managed to prevent effective action to solve the global crises like climate change, hunger, poverty, lack of access to water and deforestation. Corporate lobby within the UN has served, instead, to implement false solutions that answer to the corporate interests, which come down to having more control over land, natural resources and people.

Navarro spoke about the promotion of “green economy” by different business sectors, which will be a key issue in Rio+20. Many initiatives are included under this label, which imply the commodification of nature and allocate economic value to certain natural processes to open the door to business under the pretext of tackling the environmental crisis. Hundreds of organizations and social movements around the world that will hold parallel events in Rio at the Peoples Summit, claim “green economy” is a greenwashing of business for-profit mechanisms.

Navarro claims that “the same economic system, which is responsible for the crisis is behind all this”. The promoters of “green economy do not want to change the economic system, in fact they give great importance to the market, because of their inability to consider the costs for society and for nature, which have led to the current crises”.

CESTA’s chair and former chair of Friends of the Earth International criticized carbon trading, monoculture plantations for agrofuel production and nuclear energy. “They all answer to the same market mechanism for profit”.

Finally, Navarro said Friends of the Earth is concerned about Rio+20 being presented as a “great opportunity for transnational corporations” to use the market and continue profiting, while the planet is being deteriorated.

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