By Steve Painter
The United Nations Earth Summit will be one of the largest political conferences ever, attended by around 100 heads of state and many more high government officials as well as about 30,000 delegates from around 160 countries.
But after four preparatory conferences attended by hundreds of delegates, and numerous smaller meetings, it is clear the summit won't solve the environmental and social crisis threatening humanity's future. A fundamental division has emerged between rich and poor nations, with the wealthy North unwilling to pick up its share of the bill for the necessary shift to sustainable development, and the poor South unable to carry the burden alone.
Behind most of the divisive issues in the discussion of the environment and development looms the capitalist new world order of economic rationalist free trade, massive transfers of wealth from South to North, and blind faith in "the market" to solve the problems it has created and is making worse. It seems the North wants the summit to be a political snow job, with plenty of platitudes and few concrete agreements about the environment, while the South wants hard commitments on development, which it sees as central to solving environmental problems.
The Earth Summit, scheduled for Rio de Janeiro in the first two weeks of June, is already a focus of heated debate between the world's rich and poor nations, and it is likely the official documents coming out of it will be little more than patchwork compromises. Because of this, organisers now expect the first 10 days of the summit, also known as the UN Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), to be dominated by heated negotiations rather than ceremonial signing of prearranged agreements by the world's largest-ever gathering of heads of state and high government officials.
Agreements originally proposed for the summit included the Earth Charter, an ethical statement on the relationship of humanity to the planet; Agenda 21, a sustainable development action program for the next century; conventions on global climate change and biological diversity; and a set of forest principles that could become a foundation for a convention.
If signed, the conventions will have international legal status as treaties between governments, while the Earth Charter and Agenda 21 are simply statements of principle with no enforcement provisions. At this stage, Agenda 21 is a 500-page document, but many of its 28 sections and 115 sub-topics are still in dispute.
The Earth Charter has bitten the dust because of fundamental disagreements, and will be replaced by a less ambitious Rio Declaration. The United States is already staking out its fall- back position in the negotiations with threats that George Bush will not join the 100 or so other heads of government at the summit if the climate convention includes any specific targets for reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. The US government says it won't support any measures erican way of life".
The likely compromise nature of the official documents increases the importance of the summit's parallel people's congress and fringe gatherings, which are expected to involve around 30,000 delegates from around the world.
Non-government organisations (NGOs), representing women, youth, indigenous peoples, farmers, local authorities, trade unions, business and industry, and scientific and technological groups, will be present. It is from among these that popular movements for social and environmental change can expect to draw new ideas and energy for struggles that clearly lie ahead in view of the official failure to come up with effective strategies to deal with the crisis facing humanity.
Even with all the problems and limitations of the process, most NGOs organisations still believe it is useful. They say it provides an unprecedented opportunity for education and interaction between people representing many organisations, institutions and agencies, which can be the foundation for relationships, trust and expertise critical to the success of Agenda 21 and other international social-environmental projects. As well, it focusses world attention on the problems, even if it won't come up with immediate solutions.
Funding
Easily the most controversial question facing the negotiators on the various documents is the question of finances. The wealthy nations insist 80% of the estimated $125 billion needed annually to fund Agenda 21 in the developing world must come from domestic resources in individual countries.
The wealthy bloc, consisting of the USA, Japan, and the western European and OECD countries (including Australia), also wants to control UN environmental and sustainable development projects exclusively through the World Bank-managed Global Environment Fund (GEF), while 128 Third World nations linked in a formation called the Group of 77 (G-77), want more independent arrangements. China has proposed a separate Green Fund, an idea supported by many G-77 states, and some of the G-77 states have come up with a compromise proposal for a range of funds, of which the GEF could be one.
The European Community (EC) has been particularly insistent that the GEF should be the only vehicle for world environmental funds, but the poorer nations reply that World Bank policies are a major contributor to environmental degradation and unsustainable patterns of development, and that giving it control of environmental funds would be like "setting a cat to watch the milk".
Greenpeace air pollution expert Dave Baker also points to the contradictory position of the World Bank: "A $2 million project to reduce CO2 emissions in China compares poorly with the massive $480 million pledged for a coal-mining project that is environmentally harmful". The wealthy states are proposing two funds controlled by the GEF, on climate change and biological diversity, but G-77 is pressing for separate funds for each convention or agreement coming out of the summit. The G-77 states also want universal representation on the boards controlling these funds, while the wealthy states want only "broad membership" and "transparent and democratic" control. The poorer nations interpret this as control by the wealthy states and their transnational corporations and financial institutions.
G-77 representatives point out that the $125 billion needed annually for Agenda 21 from 1993 to 2000 is $70 billion more than total yearly development assistance to the Third World at the present time, and they have asked the wealthy states to commit 0.7% of their GNP to financing Agenda 21. The US-led bloc would not accept this, though it eventually agreed to unspecified "new and additional funding".
For their part, G-77 and China strongly rejected an UNCED secretariat report claiming that international resources should provide only 20-25% of funding for Agenda 21. Mexican foreign minister Andres Rosenthal has been appointed to lead further discussions on funding. Many G-77 nations are also aggrieved that most of the economic discussions have focussed on capitalist market and macro-economic reforms supposed to speed development in the South, but there have been no initiatives on the South's debt crisis, let alone the need for additional development funding.
The deadlock over the Earth Charter was also due mainly to economic reasons. The wealthy nations want to focus the charter overwhelmingly on ecological issues, to the exclusion of closely related questions of social justice. G-77 representatives point out that this marks a retreat from the 1987 Brundtland report, published around the world under the title Our Common Future, which first advanced the idea of sustainable development, based on the link between the environment and economics.
Clif Curtis, Greenpeace's chief lobbyist in the Earth Summit negotiations, agrees with the G-77 view, saying the charter as presently proposed undermines progress made since the UN's 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. "It ignores the progressive evolution of international law", he says. "All it does is provide the world with a bag of principles that are regressive, fragmented and devoid of vision."
Curtis is particularly critical of the charter's failure to take up the need for a ban on hazardous waste exports (many of which go from the wealthy North to the poor South), or on the production, testing and use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
"The final documents that are emerging do not meet the challenge facing the planet. We are concerned that the entire process is in jeopardy, and we do not want to be co-opted into saying that it is an acceptable product", Curtis told UNCED secretary-general Maurice Strong in March.
In mid-April a meeting in Tokyo of eminent persons on the finance agreement despite a call by former US president Jimmy Carter for the North to shoulder more of the burden because it is the biggest polluter, and for attention to the unfair flow of resources from South to North.
Carter also called for equal representation of the South on the GEF. G-77 representatives raised questions such as debt relief, trade barriers, population growth, and other international agreements including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which they say is obsessed with "free trade" policies and pays scant attention to protecting natural resources.
"By not pushing for the environment to take precedence over trade, the eminents are buying the argument for the kind of economic growth that has caused so many environmental disasters. This is going to be the norm in Rio", warned Greenpeace's Dave Baxter after the Tokyo gathering.
Technology
The question of who pays also bedevils the discussions of the UNCED committee discussing provision of environmentally sound technology to the South. It is deadlocked over a US proposal to "promote, facilitate and finance access to the transference of environmentally sound technology on favourable terms (including commercial, market, concessionary and/or preferential terms)". G-77 rejects the reference to commercial and market terms, pointing out that such transfers should be non-commercial if the poorer countries are to afford the technology necessary for sustainable development.
The references to commercial and market terms "dilute the principle that technology should be transferred under concessionary terms, that is, at non-commercial prices or below market prices", says a G-77 spokesperson, Ashraf Qureshi of Pakistan.
An indication of the extent to which the Earth Charter drafters kept tripping over capitalist market and property forms is the fact that even intellectual property rights are an issue in discussions over environmentally sound technology transfers. The OECD bloc maintains that governments have limited control over technology owned by private companies, and therefore cannot provide guarantees on its transfer. As a result of this, the wealthy bloc is backing away from the notion of technology transfer and is trying to substitute the term "technology cooperation" in official documents.
Compromises
Discussions so far on the Earth Summit documents have produced a few agreements, many compromises and some fundamental disagreements, mostly because of reluctance by the wealthy countries to foot their share of the bill, and in a few cases due to short-sightedness by the G-77 bloc.
As well as being tight-fisted on the money question, the wealthy bloc is resisting concrete measures even in areas where it is clear urgent action is necessary. While the US government agrees t to stabilise greenhouse gas emissions, it won't accept any commitments, timetables or targets for reductions, or agree to measures to reduce the USA's disastrous patterns of overproduction and overconsumption.
This is despite the fact that, with a little over 6% of the world's population, the US consumes approximately 20% of the world's resources. If the other OECD countries are included, 20% of the world's population consumes 80% of the world's resources.
In addition, the negotiators have so far not been able to agree on institutions to follow through on Agenda 21. The wealthy bloc is opposing any new institutions, though perhaps not new institutions within the existing UN secretariat structure. Even a proposal for a Sustainable Development Commission has received lukewarm support from the North.
The situation appears a little brighter for the proposed Convention on Global Climate Change, which will be the subject of separate discussions beginning in New York on April 30. These will be preceded by an OECD meeting on the subject in Paris in mid-April. While the US is hanging out against any concrete commitments, it seems most of the other developed countries support an agreement to stabilise CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
The US, often supported by oil-producing nations, has also opposed Agenda 21 measures to encourage moves away from fossil fuels by measures such as improving energy efficiency, including social and environmental costs in energy prices, strengthening efficiency and emissions standards, and removing government subsidies that discourage conservation and renewables. As well, the US has opposed proposals to develop replacements for ozone depleting products, and at the insistence of the wealthy bloc, Agenda 21 will not include targets and timetables for eliminating world poverty.
On the other hand, G-77 opposition forced the dropping of proposals on population control. Also contentious with some developing countries is a section in Agenda 21 on fresh water resources, including some warnings about the need for careful study of the full effects of dams, river diversions, water installations and irrigation schemes.
Discussions on sustainable agriculture have been marked by big problems over economic and trade issues, with issues such as the integration of environmental and agricultural policies, rural energy, food security, land tenure, conservation and genetic resources all held hostage to commercial concerns.
Discussion on the proposed Forest Principles, and an Agenda 21 section on forests, has been particularly fierce, with the big issues being international cooperation and patterns of consumption. Developing countries insist that the document recognise overconsumption in the North and the need for greater development in the South, while the wealthy bloc wants a statement on the importance of forests (the remainder of which are mainly in the South) to the world. Most of the Forest Principles document will go to Rio still in dispute.
Final discussions on the proposed Biological Diversity Convention will take place in mid-May in Nairobi, but already the US is objecting to international agreements that would affect its own policies, and developing countries have forced the removal of calls for conservation reserves. This item has also been the subject of brawling over intellectual property rights, with the rights of local communities and indigenous peoples under attack from governments and corporations wanting to control genetic patents.
The US also opposed any code of conduct for biotechnology, and particularly a system of regulation for genetic research, though even the EC took its distance on this.
And so the discussions have gone. When it came to oceans, old debates from GATT, the International Whaling Commission, the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species, etc, re-emerged. On toxic chemicals and wastes, the US forced removal of a section on military wastes and is disputing a ban on international transportation of toxic wastes, regulations on storage and disposal of radioactive wastes near marine environments, and restrictions on seabed dumping of radioactive waste.
Earth Charter dumped
The proposed Earth Charter won't even see the light of day at Rio, because of fundamentally different approaches between rich and poor countries. The wealthy bloc claimed the G-77 version was too political and laid too much blame for the environmental crisis at the feet of the developed world. For its part, G-77 dismissed the OECD version as weak and vague. In response to a US delegate's preference for a short, poetic document suitable for a poster on a child's bedroom wall, a G-77 delegate responded that many children don't have a bedroom.
The Rio Declaration will include some concepts favoured by G-77, including polluter pays, a precautionary approach to encourage environmental action without waiting for absolute scientific certainty, and the "right to development". A call to "reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption" has been retained despite US objections, as has a reference to the special responsibilities of developed countries due to the pressures they place on the global environment and the technical and financial resources they command.
While there are some hopes that the Earth Charter will re-emerge as a stronger document in time for the 50th anniversary of the UN in 1995, its present fate is symbolic of the entire Earth Summit. Any progress towards a secure future for humanity will have to be won against the opposition of the most powerful political and economic forces in the world today.