RIO DE JANEIRO -- The mood was definitely not sunny on the outskirts of this tropical city yesterday as many attending the sprawling, 30,000-person-strong U.N. international summit on sustainable development here had already taken to calling it a failure. This was before heads of state and other senior leaders had even arrived.

On the last day of pre-conference talks leading to three days of official Rio+20 sustainable development action, activists and other attendees by press time yesterday were already buzzing with talk of flopped expectations in response to the final outcome document from host nation Brazil.

Brazil's final 44-page version of the agenda will frame the three days of political meetings, featuring many heads of state and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. However, it stopped short of backing hard ideas like ending fossil fuel subsidies, setting up a $30 billion development fund for developing nations or enabling easy technology transfer between countries.

Instead it offered softly worded support for continuing to encourage cooperation across a swath of issues.

The text does propose to improve institutions that govern environmental policy at the international level, with provisions that would beef up the U.N. Environment Programme and establish a new high-level commission on sustainable development. But the consensus was that elsewhere in the text, it doesn't say much.

A comment from Lasse Gustavson, head negotiator for the World Wildlife Fund, during an interview on the ground here was typical. "There's nothing to be proud of" in that document, Gustavson said. "It commits to almost nothing but more U.N. process."

Even on the subject of sustainable development goals, or SDGs, which had been the focus of much attention in recent weeks, the document failed to identify specific themes of the goals. An analysis being circulated by WWF attacked Brazil for not naming what areas the goals would cover.

"Rio+20 risks being only a process," the analysis said.

Outcry on oceans

Others were just as disappointed by the oceans section, which was apparently watered down at the last second under pressure from the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada and Venezuela. All of them were opposed to drafting tougher regulations for illegal fishing and sustainable fisheries on the high seas.

Lisa Speer, Natural Resources Defense Council international program director, said the document proposed to do what many other sections of the document propose: to keep diplomats talking because they couldn't come to agreement in time for Rio.

"We are exceedingly disappointed that no decision was reached to negotiate a new agreement for the conservation and management of biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions," she said. "But the acknowledged urgency for moving forward on this critical biodiversity issue is at least a step forward."

Susan Lieberman, director of international policy at the Pew Environment Group, was a touch more blunt.

"We're very disappointed," she said, calling the resulting language on the high seas "disappointingly bland" and "meaningless."

"I wonder what they think they're going to be doing," she said of all the heads of state set to arrive in coming days.

Gustavson took up the same theme, saying he was hard-pressed to grasp why diplomats should be given any more leeway given the two years they had to work through issues leading up to Rio. He called on political leaders to get involved in the next three days and effectively save the summit from itself.

"Diplomats failed," he said. "If they want to use their diplomats as an excuse, then they're not political leaders."

Stern: 'This document is done'

Much of the aggression from activists was specifically targeting the United States, which has been pushing for a shift from the old "donor nation" mentality to finding more private means of sustainable development funding. In a press briefing, Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy on climate change, denied that the talks had failed and rejected rumors that he was instrumental in killing more aggressive language on oceans.

Stern referred to a provision that survived that would seek to prevent ocean acidification and credited the Brazilian government for doing its best amid "a lot of different views from a lot of different players."

"It's always difficult to make progress," he said. "It's really very difficult to manage such an unruly group of players."

For its part, the Brazilian delegation said the document is still open to changes, but Stern was frank in saying he believes the real work of Rio in the negotiating space is complete.

"I believe this document is done," he said. "I believe that's the intention of our Brazilian hosts. I think that's the ordinary course for a conference like this."

When asked whether that means such large summits are ineffective, Stern appeared to hesitate but then argued that such large gatherings -- in suburban Rio, in this case, miles from the nearest hotels or restaurants -- are part of an important diplomatic process on difficult-to-manage international issues.

"I think that you have to work at different levels," he said. "I think that these large conferences are one of the levels at which you have to move."

Brazil defends text

Brazil's lead negotiator on the final text, Ambassador Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, insisted the document was a triumph for multilateralism. He also argued -- like others at the United Nations -- that real progress in Rio has to be measured with voluntary commitments in mind and global mobilization of nongovernmental organizations.

"It reaffirms the spirit of the conference in Rio 20 years ago," he said. "It is a text that provides advances and progress."

On oceans, for instance, Figueiredo said the negotiations were swamped by multiple disagreements, which Brazil did its best to handle. He said he hopes this year's Rio accord, once it is signed by heads of state, will start a dialogue on adding an instrument to the Law of the Sea for high seas regulation of overfishing and illegal fisheries.

"This was an idea that came from Brazil," he said. "It wasn't easy to do."

Click here to see the final text.