Key to success of summit
The UN Conference on Environment and Development begins this week. It may be the grandest show on Earth, with over 100 heads of governments attending, but concrete commitments are needed if the environment is to be saved.
By MARTIN KHOR
THE two-week Earth Summit beginning on Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro is expected to conclude one of the most important and complex of international negotiations in post-Second World War history.
Although 85 per cent of the summit’s work is already completed (an estimate provided by the UNCED secretariat), the remaining 15 per cent comprises the most crucial and controversial elements. And so, the success of the summit still hangs in the balance.
Initially, UNCED was meant to be a conference on environmental problems, to mark the 20th anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm Conference that led to the birth of the UN Environment Programme.
Developing countries insisted that development issues be incorporated and be given equal treatment.
After often intense negotiations at the four preparatory meetings, the Group of 77 developing countries have managed to get UNCED to draw up action programmes on such "development" issues as poverty alleviation, health, habitat and international economic relations, besides the environmental issues such as deforestation, toxic wastes, climatic change and desertification.
Drawing up technical proposals to improve the environment was perhaps the easiest part of the UNCED process.
The most difficult involved getting commitments to change economic and social policies that cause environmental degradation, and obtaining agreement to share fairly the burden of adjusting to more environmentally sound development.
As it turned out, UNCED has developed mainly into a forum for North-South negotiations on age-old economic issues, but now within the context of environmental problems.
To the extent that UNCED has re-started the process of North-South dialogue, it has-already been of benefit to developing countries.
At the Rio conference, three unresolved major issues are likely to engage most of the officials’ energies: North and South environmental commitments; financial and technological aid to the South; and the institutions to be empowered to follow up on UNCED’s decisions.
On the first issue, Southern countries feel they have been asked to bear the brunt of environmental commitments. In particular, there is pressure to conserve tropical forests and biodiversity, to reduce the use of polluting technologies and (most controversially) stop population growth.
Some Northern countries, meanwhile, have been refusing to take the lead, even on the environment.
The climate change convention, for instance, will not include commitments by Northern countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by a specified amount and date, due to the sole objection of the United States.
The North also refused to meet Southern demands to prohibit the export of hazardous substances, projects and wastes; and the United States refused to acknowledge that unsustainable consumption patterns and lifestyles should be changed.
On the issue of biodiversity and biotechnology, Northern countries insist on having free access to the biological resources of the South (on the ground that these are mankind’s common heritage), but refuse to provide biotechnology products (that are developed out of the biological resources) on concessional terms (because of the Northern companies’ right to royalties from privately-owned patents).
This kind of double standards has given rise to suspicions among some Southern delegations and in-dependent observers that UNCED could result in the legitimization of further Northern domination over global resources.
Countries including Malaysia would like to see an "equal exchange" at Rio — in which both the South and North make commitments to alter their economic policies and protect their environment.
The second issue, financial aid, will dominate the Rio Conference. Up to now, Northern donor countries have been unwilling to commit any specific funds to help the South implement the Agenda 21 set of programmes that the heads of governments are expected to sign.
The UNCED secretariat estimates that the South will need an extra US$125 billion ($312.5 billion) in aid to complement an amount four times that, which it will have to raise internally, in order to finance Agenda 21 plans. Northern countries claim they can’t come up with that kind of money (though the US$25 billion ($62.5 billion) they recently pledged to Russia reduces the credibility of this argument). UNCED secretary-general Maurice Strong implied that some US$10 billion ($25 billion) would be enough for a start.
Northern countries are united in wanting to make the World Bank-controlled Global Environmental Facility (GEF) the sole financial mechanism to fund "global" environmental programmes. The G77 and China have long opposed this, because the World Bank’s decision-making structure, in which votes are weighed by each country’s investment value in the Bank, favours the North.
They have asked for a separate Green Fund to be created, with an equal voice for donors and recipient countries, to finance Agenda 21 programmes. This demand, after long debate, was confirmed by 55 developing countries at the Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development in Kuala Lumpur in April.
The third issue (post-Rio institutional arrangements) is closely linked to the second issue of finance. The summit will most likely endorse the establishment of either a new Council for Sustainable Development (operating under the UNK General Assembly and the UN’s Economic and Social Council) or a committee on environment and development directly under ECOSOC.
But what needs to be resolved is the mandate to be given to this new agency. It will be asked to monitor and coordinate the follow-up activities of UNCED; but will it also be given the authority to evaluate the performance of the body that eventually is chosen to handle the finances?
Southern countries would like the United Nations and its agencies to coordinate post-UNCED environment and development activities (including the all-important running of financial resources to implement these activities). The North, on the other hand, would like to see more power given to the Bretton Woods institutions (the World Bank and IMF) which the North easily controls through the institutions’ one-dollar-one-vote voting system (unlike the one-country-one-vote UN system).
Developing countries would also like the new Sustainable Development Council or committee to be given the mandate to oversee the performance of the agencies administering the funds (including the Bank).
The greatest anxiety is that since the World Bank and the IMF control the loans the South requires to reschedule their external debts, new conditions will be imposed, adding on to the already long list of policies they have to follow.
For instance, countries wanting new loans may be asked to adopt population control policies. The economic sovereignty of the South may be further eroded. And while the South has to follow Northern demands, the North is not obliged to follow Southern countries’ demands that it reduce its wasteful consumption or stop the export of toxic wastes.
The bulk of the Rio conference (June 3-14) will be spent by officials haggling over these three issues as well as a host of many other items that have not yet been agreed on. The heads of governments and states will come in only on the last three days to make speeches and sign the final documents.
Hopefully, these documents will contain some meaningful commitments on both substance and resources, otherwise the Earth Summit may be judged as only a grand show that failed to ignite a new global partnership to save the Earth.
'Southern countries feel they have been asked to bear the brunt of environmental commitments. In particular, there is pressure to conserve tropical forests and biodiversity, to reduce the use of polluting technologies and stop population growth.'
'Green' gadgets to go on display
WHILE heads of state gather in Rio de Janeiro next week to talk about cleaning the Earth’s environment, some of the world’s most powerful companies are converging in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to show them how to do it.
EcoBrasil ‘92 International Exhibition of Environmental Technology brings together companies that make the equipment to clean waste water, the computer software to detect air pollution, the electric cars to reduce polluting emissions and hundreds of other goods and services.
It is these products, EcoBrasil organizers hope, to which nations will turn after making a commitment to clean up the Earth at the UN Conference on Environment and Development, which starts on Wednesday.
The six-day industrial fair, organized as a parallel event to the Earth Summit, has attracted 21 countries and some 400 companies, spokesman Duda Escobar said. Opening on Saturday, its aim is to complement the political action in Rio.
"For many, (EcoBrasil) will become the most important and memorable event (of the Earth Summit) because here they will come to see the practical possibilities of implementing the decisions that world leaders are expected to take in Brazil," said Maurice Strong, the summit chairman, last September.
A second, but no no less important aim of EcoBrasil, participants say, is to take advantage of new opportunities for profit as business and industry become more aware of the growing market for environmental services.
"We will be there to sell, make no mistake," said, one European diplomat.
Leaders of the environ-industry rush are Japan and Germany, both of which plan dazzling displays of innovative new products and services at EcoBrasil.
Germany has rented a nearly 3,600 square-yard area in the convention center, the largest of any participating country.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl, hoping to emphasize his nation’s commitment to the business of environmental cleanup, is to visit the German pavilion on June 10.
Japan, with 2,400 square yards, is planning a major presentation of new technology and equipment, including six new cars powered by electricity and a hydrogen fuel system.
"The Rio summit is abstract discussion. EcoBrasil is a concrete form of addressing problems of the environment," said Yasuji Ishagaki, Japan’s consul general in Sao Paulo.
"The gathering of all this technology under one roof is a very significant event," he said.
Meanwhile, both US and British diplomats expressed disappointment with the turnout by companies from their nations.
"They are really missing an extraordinary opportunity. We are most disappointed," said a British diplomat in Sao Paulo. The British pavilion measures just under 265 square yards, a fraction of Germany’s and Japan’s, he said.
Despite efforts by the US Consulate, which sent out invitations to some 4,000 US companies to participate, only 25 American businesses have confirmed attendance at the US pavilion of just under 900 square yards, the consulate said.
US companies appeared to view the fair as a Brazilian event rather than an international marketing opportunity in the spotlight because of the Earth Summit.
Nations attending EcoBrasil also include, China, France, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Saudi Arabia, Poland, Israel, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Argentina and the European Community. — Reuter
Source : The Sunday Star, May 31, 1992
Recycling Point Dot Com
(C) 2000 All Rights Reserved