Are you here to save face? Or are you here to save us?? With these words a 17-year-old New Zealand girl, Brittany Trilford, speaking at the opening ceremony of the recently concluded Rio+20 summit, poignantly articulated the sense of betrayal of billions of earth citizens at the failure of nations to halt environmental degradation, including devastation of water and other natural resources.

The Second Earth Summit, or the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, was held from June 20 to 22, 2012, in Rio de Janeiro to take stock of the progress the world had made since the First Earth Summit in 1992. Tragically, the 2012 global conference, envisaged as a meet to draw up a concrete plan for sustainable development for the whole world, failed to meet this objective.

Despite the worldwide acceptance of the ?Principle of Sustainable Development? adopted at the 1992 summit, there has been no change in industrial production methods. Industries continue to pollute and cause irreparable environmental damage in their quest for higher profit. The economic model that we are following is a highly extractive and destructive method of growth, one that exacerbates social and economic inequalities and leads to environmental depredation.

In contrast to the ?brown economy?, the ?green economy? paradigm, promoted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) since 2010, is supposed to address environmental concerns, ensure equitable, inclusive and fair development and promote poverty alleviation, leaving behind the least ecological footprint possible. In reality the new paradigm has proved to be more sinister, making way for a greedy global economic regime that is marked by ever-increasing capture of nature?s resources by big corporations.

The ?green economy? framework, in addressing the ecological crisis, attributes the roots of environmental degradation to monetary non-pricing of nature?s systems, termed ?eco-services?. An ?open licence? has, thus, been provided to abuse and misuse nature?s resources leading to resource degradation.

In its correctives the framework has devised the method of commoditising and putting a monetary value on eco-system services and bio-diversity resources, like pollination by bees, or seed dissemination by birds. Next, these ?commodities? are placed in the market place permitting speculation and spot and forward sales, similar to the ?wetland banks? which have appeared in the US.

After monetary valuation of nature and its activities, banks are to be created to store and protect these resources and services; these banks will then issue credits on the basis of this monetary value which can be traded in both the primary and the derivative markets. ?Benefit transfers?, ?biodiversity banks?, ?forest carbon credit markets? and ?biodiversity credit markets? are projected to be the vehicles of eco-restoration and environmental protection across the globe. The changes proposed will have dramatic impact on the environment.

The proposed financialisation of natural resources is not a new concept. The carbon credit system, introduced in 1996 following the First Earth Summit, has failed to limit greenhouse emissions, allowing industries to continue to pollute yet generate more money by trading in these credits. Market-fixed price of carbon emissions are constantly manipulated and do not inhibit polluters. In June 2012, the EU Emission Trading Scheme fixed ?5 as the cost for producing one metric tonne of carbon dioxide. It was cheaper for the polluting industry to pay this ridiculously low fine than invest in equipment to reduce emissions.

The carbon credit system premised on growing ?alternate forests? has in reality destroyed large swathes of forests on the specious ground that what is being cut will be replaced by the planting of new forests with single species of trees that have a high carbon value.

What is forgotten here is that these monoculture forests will destroy the delicate ecological balance and bio-diversity, preventing growth of fruits, medicinal and food plants for nutritional needs of local people which traditional multi-species forests meet.

First-world companies have cornered huge land tracts in Africa and Asia. A British company growing a carbon reserve forest on 21,000 acres in Uganda displaced and deprived locals of forest produce which helped meet their food and fodder needs and barred their entry into these ?corporate? forests.

The green economy framework assumes, erroneously, that the only economic development pathway available to humans is the capitalist model of development, which has to culminate in accumulation of wealth. It is impervious to alternative possibilities such as the economic paradigms that have been evolved in countries like Bolivia and Ecuador where nature has been given constitutional rights and no development activities can be carried out in violation of those rights.

These countries have renounced the breathless consumerism and limitless accumulation of wealth and instead promote living a holistic and integrated life in tune with nature. They do not view the earth as capital to exploit but as an organism to live with, respect and protect.

The rich, developed world have not paid heed to the voices of the people of Bolivia, Ecuador and many other South American, Caribbean and Mediterranean countries, which have shown the way to balancing economic growth without endangering the environment.

Back home the green economy framework has also been applied in Uttarakhand in some respects, in which it demands states geographically below it to pay for the services provided by the forests within its boundaries and rivers originating in the state. Whether such arguments and demands will actually lead to the conservation of the environment is doubtful. What is more likely is a Pandora?s box of interstate disputes.

The green economy paradigm masks an aggrandising corporate agenda and is being aggressively pushed by corporates and obliging governments. It is a dangerous economic-ecologic recipe. If we were to follow it our children would inherit not a green economy but a red, bleeding economy.