Mahathir going to Earth Summit to forge common view: KL envoy
THE Malaysian Prime Minister will help to forge a common view among the more than a hundred developing countries to be represented at the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro next month.
Ambassador Renji Sathiah, a senior member of Malaysia’s delegation to the summit, said yesterday that this was why Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad had decided to go to the event from June 3 to 14.
Initially, Dr Mahathir wanted to stay away from the summit as he felt that it would be "pointless" to attend if it became a "Third World-bashing session" over environmental issues, said Mr Sathlah.
Speaking at a luncheon meeting organized Foreign Correspondents Association at the Raffles Hotel, the ambassador noted that the countries of the South were at a "terrible disadvantage" because of their lack of co-ordination and very divergent views.
They ranged from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which did not want any global environmental agreement jeopardising their oil industry, to small island nations, which were anxious to reach an agreement as soon as possible.
Island states such as Seychelles and Maldives were worried that they would be submerged completely by the rising sea level because of global warming.
In contrast to the countries of the South, the North had the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development "to keep them well informed and organized", he said.
He said that it was unfair for the developed countries to focus their criticisms on the developing countries' management of their rainforests.
The biggest "carbon sink", which absorbed carbon dioxide from the air and turned it into oxygen, was the ocean and not the rainforests, he pointed out.
"And why not talk about the temperate forests also? Why not talk about the carbon dioxide emission from the burning of fossil fuels in developed countries?" he added.
He accused the United States of "arm-twisting" the other countries into accepting a watered-down draft of the summit treaty in which targets for capping emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were removed.
On the likely outcome of the summit, known formally as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, he said that it would be an achievement if the leaders attending it showed "a sense of vision to create a new world order", in which there is real partnership between North and South.
A key issue to be resolved at the summit, he said, was the amount of money that would be available for saving the global environment.
So far, the developed countries had pledged around US$1.5 billion (S$2.5 billion, but this was a drop in the bucket compared to the estimated US$250 billion needed annually.
Source : The Straits Times, May 27 1992
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