ENVIRONMENT: EU Heads for Clash with U.S. over Johannesburg Summit

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Greta Hopkins

BRUSSELS, Jun 4 2002 (IPS) - The European Union is heading for a clash with the U.S. at a preparatory meeting this week for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Ministers from several countries will meet in Bali, Indonesia, from June 5 to 7 in final preparation for the summit in Johannesburg from August 26 to September 4. The preparatory meeting in Bali began at the official level May 27.

Differences are evident already. The EU delegation tabled a proposal for concrete targets and a timetable on renewable energy Friday in Bali. The move is strongly opposed by the U.S.

On Monday EU Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom who will negotiate on behalf of the EU at the ministerial meeting in Bali said “the challenge of the coming weeks, and of the meeting in Bali, will be to prepare credible political commitments to sustainable development backed by precise targets and deliverables.”

Wallstrom said: “My objective for the meeting is that we agree on ambitious but realistic political targets. I will also seek to rally partners around an agenda for change based on a series of initiatives on water, energy, health, sustainable patterns of consumption and production, globalisation and trade and governance. Partnerships for action in these areas can help resolve some of the biggest problems on the international agenda.”

But as EU negotiators move to set targets and seek partnership with developing countries, the U.S. has already made coalitions with oil-producing countries to block any reference to timetables or targets, independent observers point out.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the EU chose to deliver its ratification papers on the Kyoto Protocol on climate change at the United Nations headquarters in New York Friday, just days before the ministers meeting in Bali. The U.S., the world’s largest polluter, withdrew its commitment to Kyoto after President George Bush took office.

The first threshold for the Kyoto Protocol to come into force has now been reached. Fifty-five countries were required to ratify it, and 70 have done so. Japan plans to ratify the protocol this week.

“The ratification of the Kyoto protocol is one of the most important political tools that the European Union can use in the Johannesburg process,” says Michel Raquet from Greenpeace International.

Greenpeace says it recognises the positive stance taken by the EU in comparison to countries such as the U.S., Canada and Australia, although it would have liked the Europeans to go further. Raquet says EU proposals on energy are too vague. The EU should make a commitment to “clean, affordable, sustainable energy services” by 2015 to the two billion people without access to modern energy services.

In a declaration issued May 30, environmental groups including the Worldwide Fund for Nature, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth International said: “The proposed ‘plan of action’ watered down even further this week in Bali is a ‘plan of inaction’, a recipe for social and environmental disaster.” The groups blame the U.S., Canada and Australia for blocking progress.

EU Commissioner for Development Poul Nielson has admitted he is concerned over the state of the preparatory meetings. “I am as worried as everyone else,” he says.

A meeting of the 15 EU development ministers agreed last week to achieving a results-oriented outcome to the summit. “The EU is a progressive and constructive force, and the rest of the world has big expectations on our performance, said Nielson after the meeting. “We are committed to multilateralism, and this is where we have a different approach to the United States.”

The EU text for Johannesburg proposes a series of concrete initiatives in health, water and energy “which should be grounded in the political declaration and programme of action to be adopted at the WSSD.”

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, will use the agreement to propose a series of concrete initiatives. It plans, for example, to table a proposal to use satellite systems to map the flow of logging and enable a clampdown on the illegal timber trade. The EC wants to strengthen current monitoring systems by funding controls on tropical wood at borders.

The EU proposals are based on the Agenda 21 plan of action for the environment adopted by world leaders at the Rio summit ten years ago, and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty.

EU ministers reaffirm what they see as the main aims of sustainable development: eradicating poverty, promoting sustainable production and consumption, reconciling globalisation and sustainable development, conserving and managing natural and environmental resources, and enhancing international environmental governance.

But divisions have arisen within the EU as well over subsidies for agriculture and fishing. Northern states like Sweden want a commitment to “reduce or as appropriate eliminate subsidies which have been assessed as environmentally harmful.” Southern European states such as Spain and Italy blocked commitments on subsidies. The text agreed now proposes only to “encourage reform of subsidies.”