Finding solutions to problems, not problems to solutions

My short escape from the Rio Plus 20 discussions gave me a chance to attend more inspiring people: representative of governments working on local actions to promote the sustainability of their community. During ICLEI’s world congress of mayors, one of the sentence that resonated the most with me was the following quote:

“We like to work with people who search for solutions to problems, not problems to solutions.”

This single sentence seemed to highlight well the current problem with the UN negotiations, both here and at the climate talks. While we all are aware of the issues that need to be tackled, and with plenty of solutions on the table in both cases, the delegation representing national governments still can not reach an agreement on how to proceed.

Over the past months, the proposal for the establishment of an ombudsperson for future generations has been a key illustration of this issue. All actors acknowledge that the current crises are the consequences of the short term thinking of decision makers, a natural result of the political and economic cycles requesting managers and politicians to report back on the benefits of their actions at an ever increasing rhythm. The establishment of an ombudsperson could have addressed this challenge partially by providing a voice to inform and support decision-making in highlighting long-term impacts of today’s choices.

Still, each time that we have mentioned this proposal over the past months, we faced skepticism from many actors: how much would this come? Would an ombudsperson not increase the UN bureaucracy? Would it not threaten our national sovereignty?

We did offer responses to all those questions, but this problems-seeking approach resulted in the proposal being now entirely removed from the document that will be presented to the heads of states tomorrow. Perhaps many of the negotiators have spent too much time in these processes and have learned to see potential threats to the interest of the governments they represent rather than to prevent rather than to continuously seek the solutions we need.

I would not be entirely surprised if we would one day see a press release of the United Nations reading as follow…

18062012_UNCSDpressrelease