Posted on 5-9-2002

Heads Convinced, Stomachs Rebel
by Alan Marston

The Earth Summit, WSSD, whatever... I have a bad feeling that life just
took a back seat yet again to money and other manifestations of the human
ego. Words have been bought and sold, pyrrhic victories abound, but facts
are stubborn things, I think we're in trouble deep. Here are some more
words, I can only recommend that you read and then listen to your stomach
for the final word.

Following substantial progress over the weekend on contentious language in
the World Summit on Sustainable Development action plan, the U.N. secretary
general and the summit president issued calls on rich countries to own up
to their responsibilities regarding global environmental degradation and
poverty. In his first address to the summit, U.N. Secretary General Kofi
Annan asked delegates to be mindful of the drought and food shortages that
plague this region, which he said show "what happens when we fail to plan
for and protect the long-term future of the planet. "Let us stop being
economically defensive and start being politically courageous," Annan said,
alluding to wrangling over language in the outcome document as countries
seek to avoid damaging their economic interests. Rich countries "are
responsible for a disproportionate part of global environmental problems,"
he added. "Unsustainable practices," Annan said, "are woven deeply into the
modern fabric of our lives. Some say we should rip up that fabric. I say
we can and must weave in new strands of knowledge and cooperation. We have
already taken tentative steps in this direction; here in Johannesburg, we
must do more."

Annan, reflecting the capture of the UN and its conferences by big business
interests, reached out to business, without whose help he said "sustainable
development will remain an unattainable dream (in which case we're
gonners). "We ask nothing other of businesses than that they carry on their
normal activities, but we ask them to carry on their normal activities
differently," Annan said.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, the chairman of the summit, pointed
the finger at the rich for a laundry list of ills: widespread hunger,
suffering from natural disasters, "avoidable and curable diseases," war,
illiteracy and poverty. "Who are the beneficiaries of these perverse
eventualities, and who are the victims? Who and what is to blame? What
shall we do? What should we do?" Mbeki asked. "I believe that we gathered
in Johannesburg to answer these questions."

U.N. officials have been labouring mightily to put a good spin on the
Summit, saying since late last week that more than 90 percent of the action
plan was agreed to, but negotiators over the weekend finally began to make
progress on the most contentious issues in the text. U.N. officials said
today that only language on energy - - in particular, U.S.-opposed
timetables for phasing in renewable energy sources -- and a "sentence" on
health care remain unapproved.

Divisions between developed and developing countries, and between the
United States and European Union, have stymied language on sanitation,
renewable energy and climate change, among other issues, with the United
States generally opposing firm timetables and balking at references to the
Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases, which it abandoned last year.
U.N. spokeswoman Susan Markham said today that "most of the issues have now
been agreed by the ministers," including a commitment to halve the number
of people without sanitation by 2015. Lead negotiator Lowell Flanders
added that compromises have been reached regarding language on governance
in poor countries and the idea of rich and poor countries' "common but
differentiated
responsibilities."

In an apparent victory for Washington, paragraphs agreed to since Friday
contain few specific timetables. Those that are present include 2015 for
restoring fish stocks, 2004 for implementing the Global Program of Action
for the Protection of the Marine Environment from Land-based Activities,
implementing food security strategies in Africa by 2005 and reducing
biodiversity loss by 2010. The document also contains a reference to the
Kyoto Protocol, and deals on sanitation and renewable energy targets are
reportedly in the works.

Friends of the Earth condemned the language today for including no
"recognition of the need for more ambitious international targets." Under
the paragraph, countries would pledge to reduce emissions to a level that
"would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate
system." But according to Kate Hampton, a climate specialist with Friends
of the Earth, "Governments have not defined what is 'dangerous' climate
change, because it depends on where you're sitting." The crux of the
paragraph is a near-verbatim reiteration of the objective stated in the
framework convention, in which countries set conditions including, notably,
the need for "a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt
naturally." Hampton told UN Wire that would be "the equivalent of nature
putting on a sweater" but that temperature increases already recorded
approach the level where such adaptation becomes impossible. "In the coral
reefs, for example, we're seeing that they can't adapt," Hampton said.

Another compromise was reached on the question of globalization, which
countries wanted to present variously in a more negative or positive light.
In one paragraph agreed to Friday, a reference to "the opportunities of
globalization" is tempered by an acknowledgement that most African
countries "have not benefited fully" from those opportunities. In another
nod to the United States, a short paragraph has been approved expressing a
commitment to "take concerted action against international terrorism, which
causes serious obstacles to sustainable development."

Following a speech yesterday in Mozambique in which he declared his
independence from the United States by issuing a strong call for
ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, British Prime Minister Tony Blair this
morning said the United Kingdom will exceed its emissions targets but knows
it "must do more." "Kyoto is right, and it should be ratified by all of us,
but Kyoto only slows the present rate of damage. To reverse it, we need to
reduce dramatically the level of pollution," Blair said today. All the
European leaders who spoke also mentioned contentious issues of
agricultural subsidies and other barriers to trade, over which they and, in
particular, Washington have been criticized here by developing countries
and nongovernmental organizations.

Speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 developing countries and China,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez recalled his country's revolutionary past
as he called for a new revolution of ethics and humanism. Chavez blasted
"privileged elites" he said have destroyed the environment and slammed
"neoliberalism" as a failed development model that "places poverty as the
cause of underdevelopment, as an obstacle of development, instead of
definitively realizing that poverty is a consequence of the development
model which has been imposed upon the world by the powerful. "Neoliberalism
is the guilty party for the disasters in the world," Chavez said. "Let us
struggle against the cause. Let us not claim to do away with fires in
respecting arsonists. ... Neoliberalism is inhumane. Development should be
humane."