World delegates discuss solutions to global sustainability challenges

2 September 2011

Hard Rain Project: Solutions for Rio

Next Monday (5th September) both Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Meg Hillier MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, will address a meeting of ambassadors, parliamentarians and business leaders in the House of Commons to discuss sustainable solutions in the lead up to the Rio +20 Earth Summit.

The original Hard Rain exhibition is a photographic essay which brings the global challenges of climate change alive in a moving and unforgettable way. More than 15 million people on every continent have viewed it in city centres, botanic gardens, universities, and at the United Nations headquarters.

A new photographic exhibition, "Hard Rain Project: Solutions for Rio", will illustrate solutions to the challenges facing the environments of nations across the world. 25 examples from 25 countries have been selected by Lloyd Timberlake, a leading adviser to government and industry on development issues, and photographed by Mark Edwards, to form the latest display.

After being launched at the 2012 Earth Summit, the exhibition will be taken on a tour of major world cities. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the project's founding partner; it is supported by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida).

Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP said: "The natural environment provides us with resources that are vital to our way of life and to the global economy. If we want to achieve long-term economic growth we must tackle the twin challenges of climate change, and our use of natural resources. Preparing the UK for the impacts of climate change and promoting a more sustainable use of resources are both key issues for Defra, and I hope this project can help to sharpen minds as we head towards the Rio Earth Summit."

Lloyd Timberlake, Chief Advisor to the Hard Rain Project, said:
"Many countries are embarking on multiple initiatives simultaneously, and there is practically no limit to the effective actions individuals, governments and business can take. To get through the present and future ecosystems, resource and population crunch, it is clear we are going to have to do everything, starting now, and for a very long time."

The Project will be launched at the Rio +20 in June 2012, 40 years after the Stockholm conference that put sustainability on the map, and 20 years after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, which brought together more heads of state and heads of government than any other meeting before or since.

Whilst sustainability issues are now firmly on the political agenda internationally, there are fears that the impact of the Rio Summit will be weakened by the global economic crisis. The Hard Rain Project hopes to counter this by stirring enthusiasm and positivity, presenting successful and practical solutions that can be scaled up and widely adopted to help create a more sustainable future.

Mark Edwards, Director, Hard Rain Project:
"Hard Rain is designed to renew the ambitions for change in a large cross-section of the public and encourage political and business leaders to take bold, long-term decisions to secure our gains and avoid disasters that appear increasingly imminent. We have the technologies and lifestyle approaches needed to move towards a sustainable civilization; more are in development. The question is: is there the political and public will to scale up these solutions?"

He continued: "It will be a wrenching change, and most of us are comfortable with our carbon-based lifestyles. It will take continued leadership from the top by politicians, business and NGO leaders. And it will take grassroots leadership to create the bottom-up movement required to maintain the resolve of decision-makers"

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