August  02, 2002

'Five battles in Jo'burg, Vajpayee must lead'

Emil Salim, chair of the global preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which will take place in Johannesburg, South Africa later this month, lists the issues that developing countries will have to fight for at the Summit, and pleads with India to take the lead.

Rich country governments have expressed their willingness to deal with world poverty but are unwilling to commit to any firm targets, WSSD chair and former Indonesian environment minister Emil Salim said at a public discussion organised by the Centre for Science and Environment in New Delhi on August 1, 2002. While listing five key battles that developing countries will have to fight at the Summit, Salim called on the Indian Prime Minister to lead his delegation -- and the developing world – to Johannesburg.

Governments met in Bali in May this year to discuss the text that will be signed at the Summit. But the meeting ended in disagreement, resulting in widespread fears that WSSD would end in similar disaster. According to Salim, the five contentious issues that could decide the Summit's fate include:

• getting governments to commit to concrete time schedules

• globalisation

• trade

• finance, and

• the principle of common but differentiated responsibility.
  

The negotiating text for the Summit is long on words and promises, but short on deadlines. Meanwhile, globalisation is currently working against poor countries rather than for them. Salim cited the example of Indonesia, which is rich in copper, aluminum and tin. But while these are exported in the raw form, Indonesians cannot add value to these export-processed goods to earn more. This is because the import duties for processed goods are kept very high in industrialised  ountries. "Developing countries do not have a level playing field," Salim said.

World trade remains heavily biased in favour of industrialised countries. For instance, despite promises to reduce farm subsidies at the Doha, Qatar meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the US announced massive agricultural subsidies for its farmers in April this year. This was done to please domestic farmers, whose votes will be important for the mid-term election to be held in the US in November.

Finance has always been a sticky issue between the North and South. At the meeting on Finance for Development in Monterrey, Mexico, in March earlier this year, rich countries refrained from making any concrete pledges to increase funding, but made some "announcements" that amounted to significantly less than the 0.7 per cent of GDP they had agreed to in the past. There was no discussion at Monterrey on the counter-productive conditions that come with the aid, and there is likely to be no discussion on this in Jo'burg.

The dispute over the principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" at the WSSD negotiations has struck a particularly sour note with developing countries. The principle implies that while both rich and poor countries have a responsibility to protect the world's environment, the contribution of rich countries to the destruction of the environment has been greater so far, and so the rich should take the lead in taking remedial action.

As Kamalnath, former Indian environment minister pointed out at the public discussion, the Indian government led the G77 group of developing countries in fighting for this principle at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. Several environmental treaties since then have been based on this edifice -- for instance, under the climate change convention, rich countries have to reduce their harmful greenhouse gases first, while poor countries can increase their emissions in the interests of meeting the developmental needs of their people.

Despite Salim's pleas for Indian leadership, it is unlikely that Prime Minister Vajpayee will attend WSSD, although the final decision may hinge on whether Chinese premiere Zhu Rongji decides to attend.

According to a joint secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs, this decision was taken because "a lot of our expectations were dashed". Salim felt the involvement of Asia in the summit so far has been particularly disappointing. While several European, African and Latin American leaders have committed to attend the summit, there has been a poor response from Asia. The world is also waiting to see whether US President George W Bush, who has come under considerable global censure for his anti-environment policies, will attend WSSD.

Reminiscing about his role as head of the Indian delegation to the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, Kamalnath noted that that was the height of multilateralism. But WSSD will take place at a time when unilateralism -- particularly unilateralism from one of the richest and most polluting countries of the world -- is at its peak. This does not bode well for a meeting that is touted by many as the last chance to save the world.

Background Note

• In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) took place in Rio de Janeiro. UNCED resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21 -- a legally non-binding blueprint for governments to promote 'sustainable development'.
  

• In 1997, a five-year review of UNCED agreed that UNCED had  by and large failed to deliver. In particular,

a. poverty continued to be an enormous challenge
b. Agenda 21 remained largely unfounded by industrialised countries
c. carbon dioxide emissions had climbed to a new high since 1992

• The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) is a 10-year review of UNCED. It will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 26 to September 4, 2002. Several heads of state are expected to attend the meeting.
  

• Negotiations on preparing for WSSD have not been very successful so far. The last preparatory meeting, held in Bali from May 27 to June 7, 2002, ended in failure, as governments failed to come to agreement on any concrete deadlines for action (for instance, to alleviate poverty or move to renewable technologies), or commitments (such as aid and technology from industrialised countries).
  

• WSSD is likely to come up with an Action Plan, a Political Declaration, and several 'partnerships' to promote sustainable development. NGOs around the world fear that governments will focus on short-term partnerships, rather than committing to long-term solutions to implement sustainable development.
  

• The key issues on the table so far include:

a. Poverty eradication;
b. Changing unsustainable patterns of consumption;
c. Sustainable development and health;
d. Protecting and managing resource base of social and economic development;
e. Sustainable development and globalisation;
f. Means of implementation;
g. Sustainable development and Small Island Developing States;
h. Sustainable development and initiatives for Africa; and
i. Strengthening governance for sustainable development at the national, regional and international level. However, there were no significant or new ideas on how to address each of these issues.

For more information, please contact
E-mail: cse@cseindia.org