WSSD-ENVIRONMENT: It’s the North’s Fault, Say Church Groups

By Toye Olori Reprint | | Print |

Toye Olori

JOHANNESBURG, Aug 29 2002 (IPS) - Blame it on the industrialised North, say church-based activists at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, pointing out that most of the ecological disasters currently plaguing the Earth are a result of the rich countries’ actions, past and present.

“There is growing evidence that weather extremes have become more frequent. Floods and droughts intensify. The mean global sea level is rising. Changing climate conditions may turn 150 million people into refugees,” says a statement released this week by the Ecumenical Development and Relief Agencies in collaboration with the World Council of Churches Climate Change Programme.

The consequences of climate change further accentuate the deep injustices, which exist between industrialised and developing countries, according to the text.

“Developing countries, where the majority of the world’s population live, are more likely to be hit by weather anomalies and lack the means to protect themselves against the impacts brought about by climate change”.

The statement notes that the North also owes considerable ecological debt to the developing South.

The external financial debt owed by the South to northern creditors is much smaller than the ecological debt owed by the northern industrial countries to the developing world if the historical and ongoing resource plundering, environmental degradation, greenhouse gas production and the appropriation of environmental space to deposit toxic wastes are taken into account.

The ecological debt, according to the statement, has accumulated for centuries through the extraction — without the permission of the peoples most affected — of natural resources, such as petroleum, minerals, forest, marine and genetic resources by processes which destroy ecosystems and the bases of sustenance for peoples of the South.

“In Ecuador, Nigeria and elsewhere, ecological creditors (indigenous people affected by the activities of multinational companies) have occupied oil drilling and mining sites to stop the destruction of ecosystems on which their livelihood depends,” says the statement.

One of the main problems, according to the text, is that the decisions affecting the lives of people are being made by companies, not governments.

“The economic decisions and actions that shape the lives of most of the people living on this planet rest increasingly with the private sector. Governments are increasingly reluctant or incapable even of considering a challenge to their power.

ôOf the 100 largest economies, 51 are now global corporations and 49 are countries. Ninety percent of these corporations are based in industrialised countries, accounting for something like 70 percent of world trade and holding at least 90 percent of all technology and patent products.”

Global rules have been shaped to turn natural resources and people into commodities and markets to be exploited, often with devastating environmental and social consequences, according to the statement.

Demba Moussa Dembele, director of the Forum for African Alternatives, advocates a legally binding international agreement on corporate accountability. He called on the WSSD to endorse corporate accountability and a plan of action for a global regulative framework.

ôThe U.N. should re-institute under ECOSOC the Commission on Transnational Corporations to establish regulatory mechanisms that address the relationship between corporate policies and practices and international obligations,” Dembele said.

He added: “All U.N. member states should negotiate a legally binding framework convention for corporate accountability and liability under the U.N. system, with independent mechanisms for monitoring, compliance and enforcement, which adhere to all the principles of sustainable development.”

These, in his opinion, should include: mandatory compliance with principles of corporate responsibility and enforceable codes of conduct; operational transparency, accountability, mandatory reporting, disclosure and access to information; financial and legal liability for companies and company directors, as well as sanctions and full and meaningful stakeholder participation and respect for indigenous rights.