"Given Bush's increasingly destructive role, we feel that the Earth Summit would be better off if he didn't come to Rio", said Greenpeace's Earth Summit coordinator Josh Karliner, echoing a sentiment widespread not only in Rio but around the world. "The truth is that for President Bush, green is not the colour of environmentalism, it's the colour of money", he added.
The people of Panama also made their attitude clear with a protest during Bush's stopover for a publicity speech en route to Rio. The US president had to hastily call off his speech as the "democratic" US-installed government doused the square in tear gas and blasted the protesters with birdshot.
At Rio, as attempts to secure agreement on a series of conventions bog down or dribble away into near-meaningless general statements of principle, it is clear the wealthy states, led by the USA, have wasted a historic opportunity for real progress towards sustainable development and social justice.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the case of the important biodiversity convention. The US will probably be the only state not to sign this agreement, simply because large US corporations are planning to make billions of dollars out of so-called intellectual property rights, ie the right to patent seeds and other genetic material, much of it originating in the underdeveloped world.
In February, Bush announced that he expected the US biotechnology industry to grow from a $4 billion yearly operation to one turning over around $50 billion. This will not be possible if the US is unable to enforce its "intellectual property" laws internationally. Already, the US is threatening commercial retaliation against countries such as India, which ban patenting of food, essential health products or life forms.
It is clear the Earth Summit has become one more casualty of the New World Order, which opened with the bombing of Iraq. After the summit, it is clearer than ever that the US, and the wealthy states in general, will stop at nothing to enforce their will on the rest of the world, particularly the majority of humanity who live in developing countries.
BRAD GILLIEAT reports from Rio.
The concept of one earth has been lost at the Earth Summit as nations bargain away crucial global priorities in the interests of their own regional political and corporate gains.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) has been plagued by regressive attitudes, which have undermined much of the original mandate set out in two years of preparatory commission negotiations leading up to the summit. The UNCED process has not even begun to address the fundamental lt with to alleviate the crisis surrounding the environment and development worldwide.
The United States has been undermining the negotiations by trying to reopen discussion on previously agreed-upon texts and refusing to sign some of the conventions. The US is the only country that won't sign the biodiversity treaty, because it may infringe potential US patents on genetic material.
The climate convention contains only a watered-down version of the original strong commitment made by several developed countries at the second World Climate Conference 18 months ago. President Bush's administration has blocked any reference to reducing carbon dioxide emissions or assisting underdeveloped countries to reduce their growing fossil fuel dependence.
In UN negotiations for a climate change convention, the US has consistently opposed setting targets or timetables for CO2 reduction. Meanwhile, during the 10 days of UNCED, some 712 million tonnes of CO2 have been pumped into the world's atmosphere. The Bush administration continues to promote a national energy strategy that will encourage greater use of coal in the US and abroad. The US also wants to lift existing moratoria on offshore oil drilling.
Some non-government organisations (NGOs) would have preferred that George Bush not attend the summit, because the price of his attendance has been so high. He and the US government used the issue of his possible non-attendance as a bargaining lever to weaken the conventions and agreements up for signature.
The US has reopened the debate on consumption by trying to delete the word sustainable from the text of agreements. It has made no commitment on nuclear waste dumping and delayed making a clear commitment on funding for environment and development projects. It also insists on free trade as the main mechanism for achieving sustainable development.
The summit falls under the shadow of the Uruguay round of discussions on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). By opening vast new markets for corporate investment in the South and deregulating environmental laws, GATT has seriously increased threats to the global environment.
The US, the EEC and the Business Council for Sustainable Development (the main representative of big business at UNCED), are promoting free trade as the key to sustainable development. As a result, UNCED has ignored the damaging consequences of free trade.
Historically, unregulated free trade has encouraged over-exploitation of natural resources, and underdevelopment in the developing world. One thing that remains certain after UNCED is that free trade will continue to be a mechanism for searching out cheap labour and transferring dirty industries to the South.
Despite the World Bank's disastrous track record of promoting development projects that have contributed to deforestation, global warming, species loss, poverty and social dislocation, the bank's Global Environment Facility (GEF) has been given control over the distribution of funds associated with UNCED projects.
In many ways, GEF is the least suitable agency to manage funds associated with Earth Summit projects. It has been strongly opposed by many developing nations and NGOs, which have called on UNCED to set up a democratic, multilateral institution. Through US, EEC and Japanese support, the World Bank has continued to cause hardship through structural adjustment programs, which force debt-ridden nations to slash public spending and over-exploit their dwindling natural resources. The bank continues to impose a development model based on the North's industrial economies — a far cry from sustainable development.
Inadequate agreements
Agreements watered down at the summit include atmosphere, forestry, radioactive wastes, toxic wastes, biotechnology, oceans, fisheries, technology transfer and finance. This watering down has become a source of increasing criticism from NGOs, which released a 10-point plan at a large press conference at Rochina, the biggest favela (shantytown) in South America.
Greenpeace International, Friends of the Earth, the Forum of Brazilian NGOs (representing 1200 groups) and the Third World Network called on UNCED to face up to the realities affecting the planet. Delegates from the Brazilian forum cited urban poverty as the biggest issue facing the developing world, and called for the official UNCED process to listen to the voices of the poor. The NGOs have made the following criticisms of agreements at the summit:
- Climate Change Convention. This agreement doesn't set legally binding targets and timetables for substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The Bush administration's refusal to even consider CO2 emission cuts has cast a cloud over the whole summit.
- Consumption. UNCED has been unable to properly address the issue of excessive consumption in the North. This is in no small part due to Bush's declaration that the US standard of living is not up for negotiation. The US uses 25% of the world's resources while having only 6% of the global population. In an apparent trade-off, the developed world's excess consumption problem and the developing world's population crisis were both omitted from official discussions.
- Finance. The issue of global economic reform is crucial to solving some of the most difficult problems in the nges are needed to reverse the South-North flow of resources, improve the South's terms of trade, and reduce if not eliminate its crippling debt burden. The NGOs say such reforms are essential if the South is to have the economic space to carry out a transition to ecologically and socially sustainable development.
There have been no more than estimates of the funding necessary for Agenda 21, and final pledges won't be known until the UN General Assembly meets in September 1992. Key difference remain over the developing nations bloc (G-77) demand that donor countries commit themselves to the UN target of 0.7% of GNP for official development assistance by the year 2000. In the International Development Association, Japan, the United States and Britain have resisted commitment to an "Earth Increment" in addition to funds required to cover inflation and economic growth.
- Transnational corporations. UNCED has totally ignored one of the root causes of global environment degradation and social deterioration, especially in the developing world. The summit hasn't even discussed regulating the activities of transnational corporations. Rather, it has endorsed self-regulation and failed even to consider restoring and strengthening the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations. The Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) has gone unopposed through most of the UNCED process.
At the Global Forum, the NGO parallel conference to the UNCED process, Coca-Cola has purchased the rights to display the Earth Summit logo on its cans and Pepsi has billboards asserting its concern "For the Earth". For $100,000, any company can buy the rights to the Earth Summit logo. As Vindana Shiva, of the Third World Network, observes: "The new colour of profit is green".
Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) one of the world's major producers of ozone-depleting gases, is one that has bought rights to the logo, as has 3M, a supporter of the Heritage Foundation, which pressed President Bush to limit discussions on global warming. The BCSD is representing 49 major companies at the summit.
- Hazardous wastes. Exports of hazardous wastes have not been banned, nor has the unsavoury practice of moving dirty industries to the developing world. Regional waste trade bans have been unable to cope with such practices. Under pressure from the developed countries of the OECD, UNCED failed to put pressure on the North to solve its own toxic and nuclear waste problems.
- Forests. The Forest Convention no longer holds the status of a convention, which would have made it legally binding on signatories, and has become a watered down set of principles that fail to address the causes of forest destruction. The final agreement is so diluted that it is even weaker than existing World Bank forest policy. Recognition and support for indigenous peoples and forest dwellers were not included. The absurdity of a massive tree-planting exercise was substituted for the necessary task of saving natural
The breakdown on this issue was, again, largely due to the USA. "The US role in the forest negotiations has been so rigid it has alienated other delegations", said Bill Mankin from the Sierra Club, an important US conservation group. Developing countries rejected the notion of their forests being carbon sinks for the wealthy, industrialised countries. India, Malaysia and other developing nations strongly opposed even the idea of the forest convention, claiming forests are national, not global resources. Deadlocked areas include the right of socioeconomic development, issues of trade in forests products and the role of forests in climate change.
- Nuclear Weapons. UNCED excluded nuclear weapons and nuclear power from the agenda, including the serious environmental problem of growing waste dumps. As a result, it failed to consider safe alternatives or identify nuclear contamination caused by military activities. The summit missed the opportunity to use the recent French and Russian nuclear test bans to put pressure on the US and China to adopt similar positions.
- Biotechnology. The summit also disregarded the urgent need to regulate the biotechnology industry. UNCED assumes that biotechnology is a necessary part of sustainable development, and offers a weak voluntary international code of conduct.
- Oceans and fisheries. The summit agreements on oceans and fisheries have come under intense criticism from Greenpeace and other marine-oriented NGOs from both North and South. Land-based marine pollution accounts for about 75-80% of all ocean pollution. The agreement focuses on regional and national initiatives, and encourages a business-as-usual approach.
Large market-based industrial fisheries have seriously depleted fish stocks, degrading marine ecosystems. The UNCED steering committee on this question did recognise the importance of traditional knowledge, the rights of indigenous and coastal peoples in the management of local fisheries and the need to protect areas of marine habitat, but it failed to link the issues of debt and trade as mechanisms driving destructive large-scale industrialised fishing methods.
- Agriculture. Similarly, agriculture has made some headway at UNCED, but it falls well short of achieving guidelines for sustainable development, especially in the North. The European Community's agricultural subsidies have created an international market hostile to developing nations, as subsidies have decimated commodity prices and forced developing nations to overcrop their lands.
UNCED remains committed to achieving food security through increased production, rather than taking up issues such as post-harvest wastage and the question of subsidies. It also chemical pesticides and plays down the dangers of genetic engineering.
The summit has nevertheless gone some way towards an alternative approach to sustainable agriculture and rural development. It has acknowledged farmers and local communities as land stewards and recognised the need to increase emphasis on biological pest control. An International Ecological Agriculture Network has been established.
What was unsaid
Apart from the inadequacies of the conventions, which environment minister Ros Kelly proudly proclaims Australia's allegiance to, there are great omissions, leaving a lot of work facing the many NGOs gathered here. The biggest omission is the absence of any legally binding commitment to sustainable development and global equity.
However, the international networking begun at the Global Forum will certainly grow in the wake of UNCED's failure. NGOs now have a greater responsibility to press governments to strengthen their lacklustre commitments and to expose what went unsaid at UNCED.
It is now clearer than ever that the task of integrating environment and development cannot be left to the mercies of free trade, transnational corporations and intergovernmental processes based on false notions of democracy. While the NGOs cannot replace governments, they can hold both government and big business more accountable to the people of this world.
The UNCED process has marked a definitive shift in global politics from the old East-West polarisation to a North-South divide. The summit has highlighted the inabilities of both the developed and developing nations to reach concrete agreements on crucial life-threatening issues.
Much of this comes from an inability to bridge cultural practices and prejudices, partly out of greed, but mostly out of the great disparity in wealth, resources, technology and power. If it is true that each epoch produces at least one great lie, for the 20th century that lie must be the idealisation of the free market system, which has subverted and paralysed any of the real decision-making that just might have moved our world in the direction of a more healthy and equal global community.