Hopes for sustainable at Johannesburg summit

Hopes for sustainable at Johannesburg summit

Hira P. Jhamtani, Board Member National Consortium for Nature
and Forest Conservation in Indonesia (KONPHALINDO), Jakarta

A message of hope was in the title of Emil Salim's address as
the Chairman of the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the World
Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD), to be held on Aug. 26
to Sept. 6 in Johannesburg. He had presented a text for
negotiations of a plan of implementation for sustainable
development during PrepCom II in New York, titled A journey of
hope.

But strengthening the commitment to a socially just and
environmentally sustainable development as pledged in the 1992
Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro has been merely laced with
rhetorics as reflected during the PrepComs.

Only a draft plan of implementation was supposed to have been
agreed at PrepCom IV in Bali, the last stop before Johannesburg.
But at the closing of the PrepCom on June 7, some 70 percent of
the text was already agreed on. Bali was also supposed to produce
initial elements for political declaration to be negotiated and
finalized in Johannesburg. The plan of implementation and the
political declaration are one package; if there is no consensus
on one, the other should not materialize.

The main thorn in the plan of implementation was the North-
South (developed-developing country) divide over some important
issues, similar to what happened in Rio. The remainder of the
text yet to be agreed on regards finance, trade and
globalization.

Final negotiations in Bali over the trade and finance aspects
involved ministers, not senior officials. And yet no consensus
was arrived at. This was clearly not a matter of lack of time for
negotiations, but rather lack of a political will to make the
WSSD a success.

The bone of contention was the objections of U.S. and European
Union over debt relief/reduction for developing countries,
greater market access for agricultural products from developing
countries and phasing out of market distorting subsidies, new and
additional financial resources.

The grouping of developing countries, G 77 and China, wanted
to include an action plan to "reform the global financial
architecture" but was willing to accept a weaker language since
developed countries did not want this either. These are issues
that would address the inequitable economic power relations
between the North and South as part of sustainable development
process. By refusing to tackle them, the North clearly does not
want to commit itself to sustainable development.

The text will be sent as it is to Johannesburg, and thus there
would be no informal negotiations. But informal consultations are
going on among delegations in the UN headquarters in New York.
G77 and China would like the consultations to concentrate on
conceptual issues rather than the text. How this can happen in
such a short time between Bali and Johannesburg is an important
question. And WSSD Secretary General Nitin Desai has also warned
that the informal consultations should not substitute
negotiations to be held in Johannesburg. The tendency is to
stress success on the process -- not the contents of WSSD.

So what will happen in Johannesburg? First, WSSD may
successfully produce a plan of implementation together with a
political declaration (a "type one outcome") plus the partnership
initiatives (a "type two not-negotiated outcome"). Yet this would
not necessarily a concrete and strong commitment. The language on
trade and finance would be simply "cut and paste" from the
ministerial declaration of the fourth WTO (World Trade
Organization) ministerial meeting in Doha and the Monterey
consensus on Financing on Development.

G77 and China's language on reform of the global financial
architecture would be watered down to meaningless sentences. We
might see a repetition of Rio, in which developing countries
would lose out, and developed countries would not have strong
obligations to pioneer sustainable development. The world would
still have faith in the international negotiation process; but
lose a real opportunity to save the earth and humankind.

The second possibility may be that no consensus would be
reached on the plan of implementation and political declaration.
This would be akin to the Rio plus five meeting. The partnership
initiative might be salvaged but this would be a mere list of
partnerships with no long-term commitment.

Thus the G 77 and China would have to stick to their positions
on trade and finance. Previous negotiations show this is
unlikely. Also, during the ministerial segment of the PrepCom IV,
there was a general agreement that the "type two outcome" is no
substitute for the "type one outcome", and so this might happen
only if the North-South divide is so large as during Rio Plus
Five. Criticism from non government organizations would be high
and the partnership might not even materialize beyond mere
announcements in Johannesburg. Ultimately, it would be only a
face saving means for the UN negotiation process.

The third, least, possibility would be "no outcome". This
would be consistent with the commitment made in Bali. For this to
happen, NGOs and other groups would have to apply very strong
pressure to boycott the partnerships. The UN and the
international negotiation system would lose credibility, and
resources would have been wasted.

The fourth possibility would be "a total success of WSSD"; the
plan of implementation would contain strong language for concrete
actions, the political declaration would be as strong as the Rio
Declaration, and the partnership initiatives would involve all
stakeholders in a transparent and equitable manner.

This would have to be the real destination of the "journey of
hope". For this to happen, the North-South divide would have to
be bridged, the entire plan of action will have to be rewritten
and the partnership initiatives in the pipeline will have to be
totally revised.

As Johannesburg is less than a month away and conceptual
differences remain high, this is a very, very remote possibility.
This can happen only through tremendous public pressure on
governments both in the North and the South, and on the UN.

This would need actions on the scale of the Seattle social
movement during the fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in
1999, and the World Social Forum in 2002 that declared the
powerful message "We believe another world is possible".

But the realistic thing to do would be to go to Johannesburg
with an honest appraisal. The WSSD would be the real destination
of the journey of hope if all participants would honestly
acknowledge the lack of commitment to sustainable development,
the problems for that lack of commitment and start fresh building
new commitments.

Johannesburg should just serve as a soul searching exercise to
ask difficult questions that we, and especially governments, have
been avoiding.

One simple question: Why is it so easy for governments to
commit to the agreements at the WTO or commitments made with
IMF/World Bank, while it is so difficult to commit to the
commitments envisaged by Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration? The
honest answer would be the beginning of the journey to real hope.