“” width=”536″ height=”402″ />On June 20-22, the RIO+20 Conference will take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This year’s theme is Green Economy and Institutional Frameworks for Sustainable Development (Governance). RIO+20 is the informal name for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. This year is the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa.

So what is supposed to happen at RIO+20? The official website states that “At the Rio+20 Conference, world leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, NGOs and other groups, will come together to shape how we can reduce poverty…and ensure environmental protection on an ever more crowded planet to get to the future we want.”

One very exciting part of the RIO+20 experience is the Conference of Youth for RIO+20 (also called the YOUTH BLAST) that started June 7 and goes until June 12. June 7-8 was for Brazilian youth only, and June 10-12 is for international youth. The goal of the international section of Youth Blast is “strategizing young people’s engagement with the remaining segments of the preparatory process and the conference itself. It will have capacity building workshops, introductions to policy and consultations on existing lobby points…This is an event organized, run and

held by young people for young people.”

For the next couple of weeks, we will have lots of exciting content for you live from youth at RIO+20! They will blog about what it is like to be there, what is happening during the discussions, how other youth are reacting, and lots of other fun and interesting things. We will also be live streaming some incredible talks with environmental and sustainability experts; you can log in to watch or listen to the session and even write in your questions to ask the experts. If you would like to know something in particular or have a question for any of our youth writers, please let us know in the comments section!