Differences galore over the commitments made at the Earth Summit

As the leaders met in a mountain-girdled Brazilian town for the crucial official round of discussions on the Rio+20 text, what was most noticeably missing was the kind of excitement that was witnessed two decades ago, when more than 172 governments, as many as 108 of them sending their heads of state, participated for the first-of-its-kind global awakening event. The developed nations are seen advising the developing nations to “look forward” and not to “look backwards,” to the promises made in 1992.