Earth may get second chance in Johannesburg

Earth may get second chance in Johannesburg

The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali

After failing to garner more support from developed countries in
Bali for sustainable development measures, delegates are now
looking toward the United Nations (UN) world summit in
Johannesburg, South Africa, next August for a second chance.

However, some delegates say the chances of a better deal are
slim.

Two weeks of negotiations on a plan to implement sustainable
development measures ended in deadlock in the early hours of
Saturday morning last week. Exhausted negotiators decided to end
the talks in Bali and bring the unresolved issues to Johannesburg
for a last-ditch attempt.

In the meantime, the opposing sides will continue their talks
in Brazil, which was the host of the first 1992 Earth Summit,
said Emil Salim, the chairman of the UN pre-summit meetings in
Bali.

"We hope we can bridge our differences there," Emil said on
Monday, adding that the meeting would take place from June 23 to
June 25 in Rio de Janeiro.

At the meeting, he would transfer his chairmanship to South
Africa, where world leaders are expected to endorse the action
plan with a political declaration.

According to him, 80 percent of the action plan on sustainable
development has been finalized in Bali. "Yet, it is the remaining
20 percent that is of most importance."

Emil was referring to Chapter IX on means and implementation,
which requires developed countries to lend financial support for
the plan.

Delegates in Bali decided that Indonesia and South Africa
should draw up another draft on Chapter IX, focusing on the
common ground between the conflicting parties.

The two countries tried to revise the chapter in Bali in a
final attempt to salvage the negotiations. But the developed
countries, spearheaded by the U.S., turned down the draft.

It remains to be seen whether the two can produce a better
Chapter IX than they did in Bali, and, on top, get the U.S. to
agree to it.

"I was asked by South Africa to help them out," Emil said,
adding that it was not uncommon for summit preparatory meetings
to fail to come up with an agreement before the actual summit.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have been tracking
the negotiating process since the first preparatory meetings,
said the three months would allow delegates to hammer out
stronger commitments into the draft plan.

Initially to be called the Bali Commitment, the unfinished
draft plan of Implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable
Development drew fire from NGOs as lacking the strength to create
real change.

The negotiations in Bali were about implementing the promises
made under the Rio declaration at the Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro.

The declaration introduced sustainable development as the
antidote to the overexploitation of the Earth's natural
resources.

Current economic development shifts most of the earth's
natural resources to rich nations leaving developing countries
with a damaged environment out of which the poor must attempt to
survive.

That means that nearly two-thirds of the world's population,
who live in poverty, mainly in developing countries, pay for the
developed countries' current high living standards.

Concerns have increased that the pace at which natural
resources are dwindling will deprive the Earth of the resources
to support future generations.

Over the next 25 years, the Earth's population will grow by
another two billion, mainly in developing countries.

The Rio declaration drew on this iniquity to call on nations
to align economic development with social and environmental
concern through sustainable development.

But 10 years later, the changes have been minimal. The
greatest resistance has come from developed countries unwilling
to change their lifestyles and invest in sustainable development,
NGOs have charged.

Emil blamed this on the declaration's absence of clear
targets, defined by timetables and adequate funding.

The Chairman's Text that he drafted and on which the
negotiations' in Bali were based included time-bound measures.
They were mostly deleted in the two weeks of negotiations.

Developed countries agreed to accept only the previous targets
promised during the United Nations Millennium Summit in September
2000.

NGOs and developing countries warned that the Johannesburg
summit would become meaningless without new targets.

The delegates in Bali were largely divided into three
negotiating blocks: developing countries under the Group 77 plus
China, the European Union and the so-called JUSCANZ group, with
JUSCANZ standing for Japan, the United States, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand.

JUSCANZ was against pledging new financial resources after
developed countries agreed earlier this year to allocate US$30
billion by 2006 at the summit on financing development in
Monterey, Mexico.

Other paragraphs, such as reforming the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), and the phasing out of subsidies that hurt developing
countries, were also bracketed, the latter despite EU protests.

An Indonesian delegate warned that the developed countries
could use the three months before Johannesburg to approach
developing countries bilaterally and "buy their votes" by
offering them aid.

Activist Anthony Hill of Oxfam International said such
lobbying was already happening in Bali.

"From what I understand, the United States is talking
individually not only here but in capitals, and is seeking deals
with developing countries, holding off progress," Hill said last
Thursday amid signs that the negotiations in Bali were heading
nowhere.

Also clouding the next summit is the apparent reluctance of
U.S. President George W. Bush to come to Johannesburg.

His father George Bush reportedly only attended the 1992 Rio
Summit at the last minute following international pressure.

Without the U.S., the Johannesburg declaration would lack
teeth as the country is the world's largest economy.

A UN official urged governments on Monday to show greater
political commitment lest the Johannesburg summit collapse.

"If ... people quickly don't regroup and start pulling some
plans together, then we're going to be in trouble," UN
Development Program (UNDP) head Mark Malloch-Brown was quoted as
saying by Dow Jones