Back to Brazil for Another Try

President George H.W. Bush joined other world leaders at the United Nations' first Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Since then, global temperatures have been on the rise. in 1997, Bill Clinton tried, but failed, to get Senate ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which has been called a "missed opportunity" to mobilize international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. George W. Bush did not go to Johannesburg in 2002 for the summit's tenth anniversary. Now the focus is back on Rio, with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calling for "revolutionary action" to overcome the global "suicide pact" of industrialization. Can Rio+20 get a better start on a "sustainable" world economy? Where are the leaders of Germany, Britain and the United States?