Rio+20 Summit

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The SDGs, which are the core commitment at Rio, do have fairly clear procedural timetables; a group of 30 representatives will be established in September, and the UN Secretary-General has been clear that that must feed into the wider post-2015 millennium development goals process. There is a pretty clear process. However, we just have to recognise that a summit in a world where power is shifting to different hemispheres and different continents is different from one that took place 20 years ago. Brazil now has authority and clout on the international stage that it did not have then; the G77 is organised as a caucus of developing countries, which was not quite the case 20 years ago, and they are rightly more demanding that their voice and voices should be heard. That is reflected in the more diverse push and pull that we witnessed at the Rio summit.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

One of the areas of disappointment was the failure to move forward on measures to improve access to water and sanitation for the many millions in the world who do not have that. Given that, and given that I know the Government are committed to that objective, what steps will they take in other international bodies to try to promote the objective of improving access to water and sanitation throughout the world?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that that is one of the most important issues, as we see from the shocking and scandalous figures on the number of children and women, in particular, who have died because of poor sanitation and restricted access to clean water. It was one of three themes—food, water and energy—that we had hoped would be defined in greater detail under the rubric of the sustainable development goals at Rio. We will continue to push to do that as they are defined in greater detail in the months ahead.