Betrayal! But See You All in Mexico!
September 4, 2002
Betrayal! But See You All in Mexico!
Johannesburg: Tuesday 3rd September. After nine days of
talks, the Earth Summit is finally winding to an end. We have analysed
the final text of the Programme of Implementation and found precisely
TWO new and specific targets in the whole thing:
1. To halve by 2015 the proportion of people who do not have access to
basic sanitation (para 7), and
2. Establishment of marine protected networks including representative
networks by 2012 (para 31c) which is really half a target, but we prefer
to be generous in our praise.
And that¹s it. In every other case, existing commitments are simply reaffirmed,
watered down, or trashed altogether.
Paragraph 5(a) promises to "urge the developed countries to make concrete
efforts towards the target of 0.7% of GNP as official development assistance".
Paragraph 19(e) contains the disgraceful promotion of "clean" fossil fuels,
a betrayal of the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change (although the
announcement of ratification by Canada, Canada and Russia this week is
a welcome step).
Paragraph 22 talks about dangerous chemicals but is only "aiming to achieve
by 2020 that chemicals are produced in ways that lead to the minimisation
of significant adverse effects on human health" (!).
Paragraph 42 talks of "a significant reduction in the current rate of
loss of biological diversity", a clear step backwards from the UN Convention
on Biological Diversity.
We could go on, but the list of words and lost promises is nearly endless.
Do not believe Government spin doctors who claim success for this Summit.
It is by any objective test a failure.
Friends of the Earth International has strongly supported the Earth Summit.
We desperately need binding international agreements to fight environmental
threats to our common home, and such agreements require negotiations,
open to media and civil society. But the so-called Programme of Implementation
agreed at this summit barely begins to deal with the scale of the problems
the world faces. It is a betrayal of hundreds of millions of poor and
vulnerable people and their communities around the world. Governments
have failed to set the necessary social and ecological limits to economic
globalisation.
The chance to stem the tide of damage caused by the neoliberal economic
ideology that dominates the developed world and institutions such as the
World Trade Organisation has, for now, been missed. Instead many references
to the WTO and its rules have been included in the Programme of Implementation.
Even campaign victories such as preventing an unprecedented statement
that would have made all commitments to environment and development subservient
to WTO rules cannot change the bleak picture. The relationship between
multilateral environmental agreements and world trade rules will still
be left to the WTO to decide.
One important success was achieved by Friends of the Earth the inclusion
of clear language on the need to establish corporate accountability. However,
the US is still attempting to undermine these words through squalid manoeuvres
around a "Letter of Interpretation" from Ambassador Ashe. FoEI now calls
for a UN conference on corporate accountability by the end of 2003. This
conference should be included in the Political Declaration. The draft
text produced by the South African Government would place the issue before
the UN General Assembly.
FoEI is disappointed with what was achieved here in Johannesburg. But
we will continue its campaign for trade justice, rights for communities
and rules for big business. We will also continue to call on developed
countries to acknowledge their ecological debt to the developing world.
FoEI will now be taking its campaign "Don¹t let big business rule the
world" to the Cancun WTO Conference.
Ricardo Navarro, Chair of Friends of the Earth International, commented:
"The Earth Summit should have been about protecting the environment and
fighting poverty and social destruction. Instead it has been hijacked
by free market ideology, by a backward-looking, insular and ignorant US
administration and its friends in Japan, Canada, Australia and OPEC, by
a timid and confused European Union, and by the global corporations that
help keep reactionary politicians in limousines. So, after nine days of
waffle and posturing and horse-trading we have only two significant new
targets to protect the environment and fight poverty and deprivation."
Daniel Mittler, Earth Summit Coordinator, commented:
"This is a betrayal of the millions of people around the world who looked
to this Summit for real action, and particularly of poor people and vulnerable
communities in the South. It is an indictment of the world leaders who
came to this Summit and posed for photographs but lacked the vision and
commitment to face the scale of the worlds problems. A world where the
economy runs beyond the capacity of political institutions to regulate
and control it is in a deep crisis, and can never be fully secure or at
peace. Nothing could make us more determined to fight on for the radical
environmental action the world needs. See you all in Mexico!"
For further information contact:
Ricardo Navarro
FoEI Chair, El Salvador
Ph: +27 72 401 5392
Tony Juniper
FoEI Vice-Chair, UK
Ph: +27 72 401 5393
Daniel Mittler
FoEI Summit Co-ordinator, Germany
Ph: +27 72 401 5394