North, South differ in Bali talks

North, South differ in Bali talks

The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali

Two weeks of talks in Bali on sustainable development started off on Monday with countries from the North and South divided over who should implement what and when, while non-governmental organizations characterized the meeting as paying little more than lip service to political commitment.

Thousands of delegates from around the world are assembled in Bali to draft an action plan, known as the Chairman's Statement, that seeks to curb the overexploitation of natural resources.

The meeting in Bali is the fourth and last round of talks prior to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, which will run from late August to September.

Delegates must finish revising the Chairman's Statement this Friday ahead of talks at the ministerial level. However, some have expressed pessimism about the chances of reaching a solid agreement, citing persistent differences among the participating countries.

"What I am dealing with here are efforts to jettison the time commitments (from the Chairman's Statement)," said Emil Salim, the chairman of the preparatory committee, who has drafted the statement based on the results of three previous preparatory committee meetings in New York.

Incorporating timetables and targets into the Chairman's Statement requires greater commitments from governments to implement the action plan. This has been an unresolved issue throughout the past three rounds of talks. Seen as most opposed to such commitments are the developed countries, especially the United States.

"I told them, hey guys, we're talking here about getting results in 10 years time. We can't have something that's going to be realized in 2040," Emil said. "But putting it under a 10-year time frame requires resources, commitments, and priorities. That's where the tug of war lies."

Delegates have agreed on most of the contents of the 38-page draft, notably on poverty reduction. But several paragraphs have been bolded, meaning they require further negotiations before a consensus is reached.

In the draft, phrases setting a time target on sustainable development programs are in bold. Articles calling for more financial aid to developing countries are also bolded.

Article 33 in section IV of the chairman's text on protecting and managing natural resources calls on governments to make every effort to ensure the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This part of the article is printed in bold.

The Kyoto Protocol requires governments to cut back on gas emissions as part of an agreement signed by almost all countries except for the United States, which is the world's largest gas emission producer.

Emil said that it was no longer acceptable that 20 percent of the world's population advanced in prosperity at the expense of the environment. "That's why we need resource efficiencies. That's why subsidies on agriculture must be abolished. But look at the text, it's in bold."

He said that as the chairman of the meeting, he could not interfere in the negotiations. But, he lamented the absence of arguments from developing countries.

Indonesian State Minister for the Environment Nabiel Makariem said Indonesia was refraining from bringing up sensitive issues like the Kyoto Protocol, saying the government wanted to avoid a confrontation with the U.S.

He said that Indonesia preferred to play along with the U.S. to "build trust and then try to get a compromise," adding that Indonesia had to therefore play smart.

But a senior government official said developed countries brought with them hundreds of delegates "to ensure they have representatives in every corner of meetings so that the outcomes reflect their interests."

Non-governmental organizations lambasted the negotiations on the Chairman's Statement as representing the interests of developed countries in the North.

Meanwhile, the developing countries had been unable to resist the pressures from developed countries resulting in the current weak Chairman's Statement.

Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Friends of the Earth, Third World Network, and several Indonesian NGOs said in a joint press release that the Chairman's Statement lacked action and was designed to reflect the interests of the countries of the North.

"It (the Chairman's Statement) appears more suitable as a core document for a Northern government summit for unsustainable development," a joint press release issued by several NGOs said.

However, a United Kingdom delegate who refused to be named said the gap was more between the U.S. and a few other countries, and the rest of the world.

According to this delegate, the U.S. refused to include time- bound targets as they already existed in the declaration of the 1992 World Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. But in the view of the European Union, he said, the talks should set further goals on top of implementing those set in Rio.

"We know there are countries that are against that (time targets), and this has to be discussed in the ministerial dialogue. It's going to be very tough," he said.