Among the 65,000 down in Brazil this week for the Rio+20 Summit, those not yet numbed by the countless preparatory meetings will surely be struck by two surprising attitudes that frame the negotiations. First, the overall sense that the two decades since the Rio Earth Summit have been marked mainly by failure. Second, the uncooperative spirit in the lead-up to this year’s meeting in seeking to find solutions to what are obviously very urgent issues. Even the most patient UN observers have been appalled at the lack of progress in the negotiating sessions prior to this event.