Volume 3, No. 10, October 2002

It appears that the more the rapacious plunder of the people and the environment, the more of such high-profile summits. The 10-day World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) from August 28, at Johannesburg, South Africa, turned out to be a damp squib. The Jamboree witnessed 60,000 delegates from 180 countries, 103 Heads of State with their retinue of officials, together with ten thousand NGOs participating in what turned out to be a non-event.

A decade after the Rio Summit, the so-called Johannesburg Declaration, let alone being a step forward, took at least two steps backwards. Stabbed in the back by the 300-strong US delegation and hijacked by corporate big-business, all that the WSSD could produce were pleasant-sounding platitudes and expressions of good intentions, with no real concrete plan of action.

Ironically, the main polluters and plunderers of the people and the environment, the TNCs, were the main sponsors of this road-show. The UN paid $55 million (Rs.270 crores) organising this extravaganza, much of it reimbursed through corporate sponsorship. CEOs of Shell, Dow Chemicals, Monsanto, and other such king-pins of devastation were prominent players. It was a complete take-over by trade and business interests, with over 1,000 major global corporations represented at the WSSD. They were even granted a full day for their presentations. As one of the groups stated, " The spirit of the Rio summit has not only been lost, it is working in shackles in a polluted multinational factory".

The presence of the corporate lobby was overt. The delegation from the United Kingdom contained Bill Alexander, chief executive of Thames Water, Sir Robert Wilson, executive chairman of mining company Rio Tinto, and Chris Fay, non-executive director of the mining giant Anglo American. Even the landscape reflected the muscle of money: Standton city square at the heart of the negotiations was completely reserved for displays from the automobile industry.
Inside the Summit, the presence of business in twisting the outcomes of the negotiations to ensure that corporates do not have to account for their actions was obvious. As a delgation presented the state of affairs at the hall: Within the halls of Standton, NGOs and press have now been effectively excluded from all deliberations of the Earth Summit’s official delegations as they work late into the night. The mood is dark, as we watch commitment after commitment fall victim to the slow, soporific process of largely elderly men turning firm targets into watered down recommendations, calls for action into loophole-infested statements of intent.

As, Heads of State made beautiful speeches about the need for action, the 300-strong US delegation in the backrooms of the summit held the future to ransom, forcing delegates to accept that the US would only agree to stump up money for clean water if the world gave up on renewable energy. Behind that insistence was US Energy policy, authored by the big oil interests that elected Bush and Cheney. The US delegation’s backroom strong-arm tactics were primarily responsible for the failures. The US position consistently resisted new measures to ensure corporate accountability and opposed meaningful targets to spur the development of renewable energy. Some called the Summit a "triumph of greed and self-interest, a tragedy for the poor and the environment."

Finally, it did produce a plan of action on sustainable development, but it was a plan that either watered down existing national and global commitments or passed off old agreements as new ones. The result was a rambling agreement with non-binding, weak and restated promises to produce sustainable development.

An Accord in the Johannesburg plan of action to halve by 2015 the 2 billion people without access to sanitation and drinking water has been touted as one of the biggest achievements of the WSSD. But it is quiet on whether this will reverse the privatization of water that is taking place. Does it mean distribution of these facilities at a price? Besides, this very commitment is already one of the UN goals. It was one of the Millennium Development Goals drawn up at another U.N. Conference, the Millennium Summit of 2000, and has now been passed off at the Johannesburg Summit as a new commitment.

Another much touted commitment of the WSSD Summit was to "significantly cut" the rate of species extinction by 2010. But the signatories on the Convention on Biological Diversity had agreed at a meeting last April to go much further — to take measures by 2010 to "stop" species loss. In other words this too was a step back.

The Summit’s silence on life patents ensures business as usual: multinationals will continue to profit from and exert control over natural species.

The Summit failed to endorse the precautionary principles in toxic wastes. No call was given for ratification of the Basle Convention that bans trade in toxic wastes.

Binding commitments to fisheries restoration under the 1982 UN Convention on the law of the sea was reiterated, but was now made "voluntary" and to be implemented by 2015 "where possible".

The text fails to recognise the serious challenges posed by globalisation (in the sphere of trade) and hold multinationals accountable for their activities. The developed countries refused to commit to phasing out trade-distorting subsidies and provide better market-access to exports from poor countries.

The energy section of the plan of implementation, as it was agreed:
*Delivers nothing on energy supply for the 2 billion people world-wide who have no access to modern energy services;

*Has no targets or timetables of any kind for the uptake of renewable energy;

*Delivers nothing on reducing the massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry which continue to prop up its dominance of the global energy mix;

*Merely reiterates agreements made over the past several years.

Both the European Union and Brazil came to the Summit with proposals for firm targets on renewable energy. While varying in the degree to which they would have spurred investment in renewable energies like solar, wind, small-scale hydro, and modern biomass, either would have sent a strong signal to governments that the Summit was serious about the battle against global warming. Negotiators from the United States delegation were so bloody-minded in their attempts to get renewable energy off the table that they effectively pushed for an energy plan, which would amount to a ban on solar power. Governments agreed to take action to help the poor gain access to affordable energy but failed to agree on specific targets to boost the share of global energy produced from renewable energy. Environmental groups accused the EU of capitulating to American demands. The summit also saw wrangling over the meaning of the term "renewable", with some countries, like India, arguing that nuclear power and lucrative hydro-electric schemes should be included under this banner.

Overall, the so-called plan of action contained weakened commitments, and either included voluntary accords (such as the establishment of a new solidarity fund to aid poverty reduction) or promises without time-tables (such as promotion of renewable energy). In essence, it was a step back from Rio and the Kyoto protocol.

The main reason for this is that the world’s largest polluter, the USA, have refused to ratify any of the nearly 400 multilateral treaties relating to sustainable development. At this Summit they even stressed their objections to setting any new targets for improved health and water provisions in the undeveloped world.

The Rio Summit — where leaders from over a hundred countries signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity; endorsed the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the Forest Principles; and adopted the centerpiece, Agenda 21, a 400-page plan of action for achieving sustainable development in the 21st century. As a follow-up to Rio, the Commission of the Sustainable Development (CSD) was created in Dec 1992 under the U.N. Economic and Social Council in order to ensure the effective implementation of what was agreed upon at Rio.

The five-year review of the progress of the moves initiated by a special session of the UN General Assembly held in June 1997, led to the adoption of a comprehensive document titled "Program for Future Implementation of Agenda 21" prepared by the CSD, which also organised the four preparatory meetings leading to the WSSD.

But, as this finale disclosed, the ‘grand aspirations’ that the understanding on sustainable development generated and all the treaties agreed upon have fallen flat in the decade after Rio.

Police surrounded Sandton conference centre and shopping mall with water-cannons, razor-wire, tanks, armored vehicles, machine guns, and helicopters. Inside Standton, Saturday shopping and luxury dining by the public and delegates to the World Summit continued unabated. Delegates from inside the conference who went to join the march passed through armed checkpoints into another world. "I’ve seen now the white marble opulence of Sandton and the shack and dirt poverty of Alexandra" (the ghettoes, barely a few kilometers from the venue) said one protestor. "The disparity that this summit needs to address is illustrated perfectly within a five mile radius of the meeting."

Thousands of demonstrators marched to the World Development Summit venue in Johannesburg, in the first mass protest on its opening day. Singing apartheid-era songs, an estimated 20,000 people protesting about issues ranging from Aids to globalisation, arrived at the convention centre in the rich white suburb of Sandton from the shanty township of Alexandra. Police were out in force, with helicopters, dogs and water canons. The crowd sang and danced as they waved banners with messages which included "Factory gases and waste are killing", "Hands off Iraq", "Globalise the Intifada", "Stop Thabo Mbeki’s Aids genocide".

On the Summit’s closing day, the US Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the packed plenary session around noon on behalf of the United States. Greenpeace and other groups have widely criticised the US for the lion’s share of responsibility for this Summit’s failure to adopt clear renewable energy targets. When Colin Powell chastised countries for saying "no" to US genetically modified food, the room simply erupted in boos and catcalls. And when he tried to claim that the US was defending biodiversity and promoting renewables, there was this incredible roar of disbelief — nobody was silent. Powell was unable to continue for several minutes as the gallery of the conference room voiced its protest: "Shame on Bush" was among the chants, a banner saying "Betrayed by Governments" was unfurled, and several representatives were escorted out by security, still voicing their disbelief. Chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma called for order, saying "This is totally unacceptable," but the spontaneous outpouring of protest simply would not be silenced.

The question that arises is that why have things only deteriorated in the world since Rio, and why after so many preparations was this Johannesburg Convention such a miserable flop. Why also, instead of advancing, has this gathering taken a few steps back? There have been over 500 international and regional agreements covering everything from protection of the ozone layer to conservation of oceans and seas. But, to no avail!! Why?

The answer is to be found in the question of having a correct understanding of globalisation, which is nothing but an offense of capital in a period of its crisis. In its desperation for maximization of profits, it seeks the biggest returns at any cost. In this period that cost is the lives of the poor throughout the world, and particularly in the underdeveloped countries and also the rape of the environment. The holocaust at Bhopal is a prime example of the callousness of big capital. In Kerala the farmers have been left with dry fields as the Coke distillery is taking a major share of their irrigation water, without the government paying any heed to the repeated voices of discontent of the local villagers. No summits and appeals to their conscience is going to make them give up (or even reduce) their profits. This has become even more so in the last two years, when the economies have been pulled into an even deeper crisis, and particularly the US, has turned into a maniacal war monster. The deepening crisis of capitalism, particularly in America is the reason for its increasing arbitrary behaviour at international fora, and it is utopian to think that it may retract in such a situation. On the contrary, as in fact the ground reality has already shown, it will only get more aggressive.

The only way to get greater equitable growth between the rich and the poor and also stop the rapacious plunder of the environment, is only through a bitter struggle against the policies of imperialism (and their multilateral institutions) in general, and the US in particular. Sustainable development is not possible in the existing set-up; it is only possible through a democratisation of all the structures of society, where, first and foremost, the people in the villages take control of their lives and habitat, break out of the chains of semi-feudal bondage, and assert democratic power over the socio-political life of the area.

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