Global Development Plan A Flop, say Activists

By Thalif Deen

JOHANNESBURG, Sep 4 (IPS) - After 10 days of protracted negotiations, 190 governments endorsed Wednesday a 71-page global plan of action aimed at uplifting the poor and saving the world from environmental destruction.

The action plan, which was unanimously adopted at the conclusion of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), drew mixed reviews from senior U.N. officials, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and representatives of civil society.

''Some people came to Johannesburg hoping to resolve all of the world's problems,'' United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told reporters. ''But this summit is only the beginning,'' he added.

Annan said he was satisfied with the results of the largest, most expensive ever U.N. conference. ''We have to be practical and realistic, and move forward. What is important is not what happened at the summit, but what happens when he get back home (and implement the plan of action).''

Despite Annan's optimism, every major NGO participating in the summit condemned the summit's outcome, including Greenpeace, Oxfam International, Eurodad, Worldwatch Institute, Friends of the Earth International and World Resources Institute.

They levelled criticisms particularly at the United States, Australia and Canada - described as the ''environmental axis of evil'' for blocking proposals to fix time-bound targets for cleaning the air, providing the world's poor with access to fresh water and for replacing fossil fuels with cleaner renewable energy sources.

Western donor nations, particularly the United States, also came under heavy fire for not committing to spend more money to implement the plan of action.

''Overall, we must ask: will the poor be better off 10 years from now? Will our world be safer or more secure from global environmental threats 10 years from now?'' asked Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute (WRI).

''Unfortunately, there are too many gaps and too few teeth in the WSSD plan of action,'' he answered.

The plan of action fixes only three time-bound targets: to halve the number of people without access to proper sanitation by 2015; to restore depleted fish stocks by 2015; and to significantly reduce the extinction rate of the world's plants and animals by 2010.

Lash said he was disappointed that the Summit failed to set targets for increasing use of renewable energy sources, like solar or wind, and refused to push for universal ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

The United States remains opposed to Kyoto and to any concrete action to combat climate change, despite producing one quarter of the world's climate emissions.

Susan Finkelpearl of Worldwatch Institute said the Johannesburg agreement is ''weak on targets and timetables''. ''It will also be more difficult to enforce as it lacks sanctions on non-compliance.''

''The next few years will reveal whether government leaders will enact and enforce laws needed to make the vision of a sustainable world a reality,'' she added.

But Nitin Desai, secretary-general of the WSSD, hailed the agreement on sanitation as a major step forward. At the end of the talks Sunday, governments agreed that by 2015 they will reduce by one-half the number of people worldwide who lack access to proper sanitation.

''This is an historic commitment,'' Desai said, ''because for the first time, the world has made the issues of water and sanitation a high-level political priority. We need this political commitment, and now we need the practical measures and partnerships to ensure that the new goals are met,'' he added.

That optimism contrasted sharply with the non-official viewpoint.

The final agreement is ''worse than we could have imagined'', said Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace.

Antonio Hill of Oxfam added: ''How can more than 100 world leaders look us in the eye and shower us with platitudes while their governments have retracted from the many commitments made at and after the Rio summit, including pledges to reach the 0.7 percent gross domestic product (GDP) target to meet official development assistance (ODA)?''

The 1992 Rio or Earth Summit in Brazil was the first international meeting on sustainable development.

Although the WSSD final document pledges to increase ODA, it is a commitment with no figures, added Ted Van Hess of Eurodad. ''The big loser in this summit is poverty and sustainable development.''

The language in the final document is ''pre-authorised and even pre-Rio,'' he added.

Only five countries - Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Luxembourg - have so far met the target to spend 0.7 percent of GDP on development aid. The United States, the world's richest country, earmarks only about 0.1 percent of its GDP to foreign aid.

That country earned the most stinging criticism at the WSSD.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was standing-in for President George W. Bush, was jeered when he took the podium at the convention centre on Wednesday.

Shouting ''Shame on Bush'', several U.S. environmental leaders were forced out of the centre and had their access badges confiscated.

Powell said Washington had committed to provide an extra five billion dollars a year in international aid to countries that observe global governance, including multi-party democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and commitment to free market economies.

''We are committed not just to rhetoric and to various goals, we are committed to a one-billion-dollar programme to develop and deploy advanced technologies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions,'' he added.

According to Deborah James of San Francisco-based Global Exchange: ''As Americans, we are here to say that this (Bush) administration does not speak for us, and does not speak for the millions of Americans who want an end to poverty and a healthy future for our kids.''

''The Bush administration ought to represent all the people of the United States, not just big business,'' she added.

Despite Powell's ''shameless speech'', said Ricardo Navarro of Friends of the Earth International, ''U.S. intransigence has been obvious to the world''.

''U.S. refusal to agree to substantive agreements with timetables and targets is particularly egregious given the disproportionate share of global resources it consumes and environmental damage it does,'' he added.

Last month, 31 right-wing groups and individuals wrote Bush asking him to commit to no new targets and timetables at Johannesburg, Navarro said. The United States has done its best to pander to these interests, he added.

Navarro also said that Washington had obstructed discussions during the WSSD on critical issues such as global rules for business, which would ensure high standards of corporate behaviour everywhere.

Despite the corporate scandals that have rocked the United States, U.S. officials undermined corporate accountability negotiations taking place in Johannesburg, he noted. (END/2002)