Steps to Earth Summit

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.