Disappointing End to Rio+10

By Marwaan Macan-Markar, Thalif Deen, and - - Reprint | | Print |

JOHANNESBURG, Sep 8 2002 (IPS) - Amid the jeers and boos of activists and the complacency of government officials, the Rio+10 Summit concluded with an action plan that includes very few commitments or timelines for poverty abatement or environmental protection. The action plan of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), adopted Sep 4 by 190 countries represented at the meeting in this South African city, is extremely short on commitments or timelines for fighting poverty and protecting the environment.

The only goals with deadlines included in the document are to halve the population without access to potable water and sanitation by 2015, the restoration of the oceans' depleted fish stocks by 2015, and a significant reduction in the rate of plant and animal species extinction by 2010.

''Some people came to Johannesburg hoping to resolve all of the world's problems,'' United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. ''But this summit is just the beginning.''

The 71-page action plan received the condemnation of almost all of the major non-governmental organizations (NGOs) participating in the Summit, including Greenpeace, Oxfam International, Eurodad, Worldwatch Institute, Friends of the Earth International and World Resources Institute.

They leveled criticisms particularly at the United States, Australia and Canada — described as the ''environmental axis of evil'' — for blocking proposals aimed at cleaning the air and replacing fossil fuels with cleaner renewable energy sources. The United States was the main target as it is the world's biggest polluter.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was standing in for President George W. Bush, was jeered during his address to the Summit.

Powell repeated the promise Bush made in March: the United States would provide an extra five billion dollars a year in international aid to countries that observe global governance, including multi-party democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and commitment to free market economies.

NGOs blamed the oil industry for blocking the efforts during the WWD — which cost 55 million dollars and drew nearly 20,000 delegates — to reach a quantifiable commitment on renewable energy, the only issue on which Latin America took the leadership, with Brazil speaking on behalf of the region.

The governments voted down the Brazilian proposal to achieve 10 percent renewable energy sources for all energy consumed worldwide by 2010.

Australia, Canada, Japan, United States and the 11 nations of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) obstructed approval of the measure.

The agreement reached in Johannesburg is ''an outright disaster'', said the NGOs working as the Energy and Climate Caucus at the Summit.

Environmentalists were also critical of the G-77, a group made up of 133 developing countries currently presided by Venezuela, charging it was manipulated into falling in line with the countries opposed to specific renewable energy targets.

According to the World Wildlife Fund, the Summit failed to establish standards for protecting and managing water sources and to confirm the supremacy of the needs of the poor and the environment over free trade.

Ricardo Navarro, chairman of Friends of the Earth International, said the United States had also stood in the way of efforts for international regulation of transnational corporate activity, in spite of the enormous accounting scandals of firms in that country.

Washington “has betrayed our environment, and the needs of the poor and the vulnerable around the world… The responsibility of the US for the relative failure of this Summit is paramount. The whole world knows it. Nothing Powell had to say will make the slightest difference to this damning verdict,” said Navarro.