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refer to an article “Green Economy brings int’l accolades for Indonesia,” (The Jakarta Post, July 2) by Adam Tomasek.

It is quite rewarding to learn from Adam Tomasek, who attended the Rio+20 Summit in Brazil, that despite the many disappointments of this affair, Indonesia earned the opportunity to lead the world by showing, through tangible examples from places like Kalimantan, just how a green economy can look.

This positive assessment contradicts a number of controversial views in the media of some other ASEAN countries. According to them, Rio+20 should be treated as the biggest failure of collective leadership since World War I.

The adoption by the conference of the outcome document “The Future We Want” is a victory of the United Nations’ multilateral diplomacy. It opens a new chapter in the global promotion of sustainable development and requests 193 countries to put into practice the recommendations contained in its 53 pages.

In this respect, all 10 ASEAN countries, following Indonesia’s lead, may have an exemplary role to play. Regional diplomacy can contribute to fighting “sustainability fatigue”, a phenomenon sometimes leading to open skepticism when it comes to environmental issues.

 The anti-sustainability lobby can be gradually defeated, at both regional and global levels, only by genuine multilateralism and universal solidarity. ASEAN countries already have commitments in this regard, as reflected in older documents, like the Yangon Resolution on Sustainable Development (2003). Here, all of them expressed appreciation for international and regional organizations, and other states, who have collaborated with ASEAN in sustainable development
initiatives.

ASEAN has repeatedly called upon current and prospective partners to improve collaboration through regular policy dialogue and programs of common interest.

After Rio+20, ASEAN is expected to intensify efforts toward a global political consensus  and demonstrate through practical initiatives that “The Future We Want” is, indeed, an instrument for real action and not an expression of pompous diplomacy.

Ioan Voicu
Bangkok