The recent news out of the RIO+20 summit is dire. No collective pre-agreement, no institutional change, no investment. The difference between RIO+20 and Kyoto was that at least Kyoto created an agreement that no one really abided by (and probably never planned to abide by). In the case of RIO+20 even that charade appears to be missing.
The head of Greenpeace, Kumi Naidoo, has gone so far as to declare “war” on the finance sector. As he told The Guardian:
we have been investing a lot of effort over the past couple of years to understand the industry and where the leverage points are and I think we are close to this point and finance institutions should be put on notice that not only Greenpeace but others are going to be putting them under much greater scrutiny.
… But the real issue that the environmental movement’s leaders have failed to grasp is that the reason there is such a lack of corporate and governmental action is that the consumers and general population do not believe and act like activists. While environmental activists ramp up the rhetoric to a war footing, ordinary individuals get on with their lives. Unfortunately, it is this ordinary individual to whom the “evil” corporate and “neutered” political representatives are beholden. The environmental movement has, in a way, declared war on everyone and its representatives.
They want a war with the financial sector because, as bank robber John Dillinger would have said, ‘That’s where the money is.’