Steps to Earth Summit

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

Among recent articles in this newspaper on the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) which opened in Johannesburg, South Africa on Monday was "Why the Earth Summit must fail" by W.B. Chambers.

Chambers wrote that it is better to let the Summit fail since governments have no commitments to sustainable development and because the negotiations have lost directions. As a witness to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, and an active participant during the preparatory meetings (PrepCom) to the WSSD this year in Bali, I am inclined to sadly agree with the above author.

In Johannesburg, heads of states and negotiators will try very hard to reach to an agreement, merely to save the Summit, not to garner commitments and support for sustainable development.

Sustainable development would thus only be reduced to finding agreements on compromise languages to the remaining contentious issues in the Draft Plan of Implementation i.e. mainly on reducing use of fossil fuel and tackling climate change, globalization, finance and trade and governance.

Even the agreed text on technical issues does not say much about implementation. The draft Implementation Plan is full of words such as "encourage", "support", "take further action", "call upon governments", etc.

The success of the Summit would be measured only on whether governments can come to an agreement on the text of those issues. What comes after the text has been agreed upon is another issue. When governments can renegade on the commitments made in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, they can renegade on the commitments to be made in Johannesburg. And therefore the Summit's success should not be in reaching agreements on texts, but should be measured on its contents and whether governments and the United Nations implement their commitments in the future.

The WSSD will be a success if the following 10 points are agreed on by governments and then implemented.

One, principles on "common but differentiated responsibilities" and precautionary approach (as part of the Rio Declaration) must be not only retained in the Draft Implementation Plan -- details on its operations should be provided.

Two, as a logical consequence of the precautionary principle, governments must agree on concrete steps for technology assessment to reduce negative impacts and threats to sustainable development. Such technologies are, for instance, nuclear, modern biotechnology and all future technologies with possible adverse impacts on sustainable development.

Three, governments must agree on a time frame for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. Four, the Summit must make commitments and set dates for negotiating a legally binding convention on corporate responsibility, particularly pertaining to environment and social dimensions.

Five, the summit must call for a ban on the patenting of life forms and parts of life forms as an effort to strengthen measures in conserving biodiversity, fostering food sovereignty and upholding human and ecological ethics.

Six, the Summit must make commitments to take steps to reform the global financial architecture to create a stable economic development in developed and developing countries, as well as to solve the unequal economic power relationships between developing and developed countries.

Seven, governments must agree to manage (including to reduce or abolish) developing countries' debts as one of the basic conditions to sustainable development at the national and international level.

Eight, the summit must produce an agreement on international governance for sustainable development, through measures to ensure coherence between the UN, the World Trade Organization), the International Monetary Fund and the Bank, adhering to the principle that implementation of treaties on sustainable development and environment must not be undermined by trade and financial agreements.

Nine, governments must agree on legally binding measures to reduce green house gases through time-bound targets to consumption of fossil fuel, shifting to cleaner production technologies and gradual switch to renewable energy sources, even beyond the Kyoto Protocol.

Ten, the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) must be reformed so as to reduce the World Bank's domination, since the Bank is a northern controlled agency with a poor track record on sustainable development.

Many of the above points (such as green house gases reduction, technology assessment, debt management and reducing the dominance of the World Bank in GEF) have been raised way back in Rio by a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They have been raised over and over again and particularly during the PrepComs. Some negotiators have picked these points and tried to push them into the text, others have ignored them or watered down the language.

The expression "the need to negotiate a legally binding international treaty on corporate accountability" has been reduced to "adopt voluntary measures for corporate accountability". Inevitably these 10 points will not form part of the official summit negotiations.

Without these 10 points, the Summit would be a failure anyway; even its governments manage to agree on the remaining contentious issues in the Draft Implementation Plan. So, as Chambers wrote, a failed WSSD might just be the shock therapy needed to make governments and international agencies renew commitments to sustainable development.