The spirit of Rio must be reinvoked in Bali

The spirit of Rio must be reinvoked in Bali

Hira Jhamtani
Board member of
KONPHALINDO
an environmental NGO based in Jakarta.

In June 1992, Rio de Janeiro saw a celebration of the spirit
to save earth and humankind through the Earth Summit. World
leaders, civil society groups and international agencies came
together to pledge their commitment to the Earth.

The "Spirit of Rio", as it was often called, gave birth to an
awakening about linking environment with development in the new
paradigm of sustainable development.

It was about the spirit of North-South (developed and
developing countries) partnership, about the engagement of non-
governmental organizations and other major groups in the
development process.

Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration brought hopes that the
sustainable development paradigm would be carried forward into
practical programs and policies that would deal with the
environment and development crises.

Today, it is time to ask if the Spirit of Rio is still alive?

To answer the question, let us look at some statistics and
information presented in the WorldWatch Institute's latest
"State of the World" report.

Global emissions of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which most
scientists believe causes global warming, have increased more
than nine percent in the past 10 years.

According to the Forest Resources Assessment 2000 by the UN
Food and Agriculture Organization, forest areas worldwide
decreased by 2.2 percent since 1990.

About 27 percent of the world's coral reefs, a crucial habitat
for marine species are now severely damaged due to pollution,
warming sea water, mining and fishing; at the time of the Earth
Summit only 10 percent were damaged.

On the economic front, according to the report, the 1990s saw
unprecedented economic growth - adding more than $10 trillion a
year to the global economy.

But it was also a decade that left the number of people living
in poverty nearly unchanged at more than one billion people.
Despite the prosperity, the gap between rich and poor is widening
in many countries.

A remarkable irony is that while people in wealthy countries
are living longer than ever, some 14,000 to 30,000 people
continue to die each day in developing nations from water-borne
diseases. So, let us ask again, where is the Spirit of Rio?

The international community, world leaders and international
agencies are reluctantly admitting that the promises and hopes
raised in Rio have largely not been fulfilled.

Even as early as five years after the Earth Summit, the Spirit
of Rio had weakened considerably. The Rio Plus Five Summit in
1997 ended without a political statement of commitments because
the differences between the North and South countries were too
wide to bridge.

Ten years down the road, the reality is different.

The State of the World Report said that under-funding of
environmental initiatives, the stagnation in foreign aid
spending, and the indebtedness of developing nations, have
hampered environmental and social progress.

Indeed foreign aid spending declined, from US$69 billion in
1992 to $53 billion in 2000. On the other hand, total debt burden
in developing countries and nations in economic transition
increased by 34 percent since the Earth Summit, amounting to
$2.5 trillion in 2000.

A striking example is the fact that while the UN Environment
Program (UNEP) is struggling to maintain its annual budget of
roughly $100 million, military expenditures by the world's
governments are running at more than $2 billion a day.

In essence, the sustainable development paradigm has not been
given a chance to be tested in implementation.

In addition, sustainable development had to compete with the
paradigm of globalization that was gaining more strength than
ever the years after Rio, especially as it was institutionalized
in the several agreements of the World Trade Organization (WTO),
established in 1994.

Many WTO agreements undermined chapters of Agenda 21 and the
Rio Declaration. The best example would be the undermining of
technology transfer envisaged in Agenda 21 and many Multilateral
Environmental Agreements (MEAs) by the Trade Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), an agreement under the WTO
aimed at tightening intellectual property rights regimes in
member states.

TRIPS, to a certain extent, has hindered transfer of
technology, even environmentally sound technology. TRIPS also
triggered problems in public health, due to patent regimes for
drugs including live saving essential drugs such as for HIV/AIDS.
This was partially addressed during the fourth Ministerial
Meeting of the WTO in Doha, November 2001.

The WTO has a dispute settlement system based on retaliation
and sanction which gave it a strong enforcement capability.

The agreements reached during the Earth Summit, on the other
hand, did not have a strong compliance system.

Thus governments are more inclined to implement agreements
under the WTO rather than agreements of the Earth Summit.

At the institutional level, the United Nations (UN), the
international organization given the mandate to arrange the
conduct of sustainable development, is being undermined through a
lack of funding and political support.

Therefore, now more than ever, communities need to reinvoke
the spirit of Rio. The question is can it be done at the World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to be held in
Johannesburg, September this year.

The WSSD is supposed to produce a set of implementation agenda
towards sustainable development and institutional arrangements,
to be strengthened by the political declaration of world leaders
committing towards that agenda.

However, judging from the negotiating text prepared and
produced during the three meetings of the preparatory committee
(PrepCom) held at the UN headquarters in New York, there seems to
be reluctance on the part of the delegates to make such a
commitment.

For sometime during PrepCom III in late March-April, the text
amounted to about 100 pages of normative and empty statements
that do not really reflect commitments to sustainable
development.

The latest text, produced by the Chairman on May 9, contains
the said implementation agenda but still having the weak language
in terms of real commitments. For instance, many proposed actions
do not have a time frame while contentious issues remain on
sections such as energy, coastal ecosystems, trade and finance,
and on institutional arrangements.

The text will be negotiated in Nusa Dua, Bali during PrepCom
IV, with the hope that a considerable amount of consensus will be
reached. Elements of political declaration will also be discussed
to be agreed upon by leaders in Johannesburg.

In addition, a list of partnership arrangements (often called
the type 2 outcome of the WSSD) will also be finalized to be
announced in Johannesburg. The type 2 outcome has been criticized
by civil society groups as undermining real long-term political
commitment to a sustainable development action plan, as there is
no criteria, measurement and accountability for the outcome.

Thus the PrepCom in Bali will be important to pave the way to
forge real commitments by world leaders in Johannesburg. There
are high hopes that Bali, being a place with spiritual and
relaxing characteristics, may perhaps be able to reinvoke the
spirit of Rio among governments and civil society groups.