World leaders on Wednesday opened a U.N. summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they are set to endorse a plan for eradicating poverty and protecting the environment. More than 90 leaders, including the host, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, are attending the Rio+20 summit on sustainable development. The Summit was keen to avoid pressing leaders too much over the final text, after the 2009 Copenhagen Summit nearly collapsed and was followed by angry statements among participating countries. The draft outlines measures to addressing the planet's many environmental problems and lifting billions of people out of poverty through polices that nurture rather than squander natural resources.
