What's this Earth Summit thing that's
been in the news recently?
The World Summit on Sustainable Development recently took place
in Johannesburg, South Africa. Organized by the United Nations, it
brought together nearly 60,000 people to discuss “development
which meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability
of future generations to meet their own needs.” Participants
included national delegates, nonprofit leaders, business lobbyists
and many of the world’s heads of state.
This Johannesburg Summit is often called the Earth Summit, as it was
a follow up to the original Earth Summit, which took place in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992. At that meeting, delegates adopted Agenda
21, a plan of action for worldwide sustainable development that included
over 2,500 realistic recommendations for reducing waste, fighting
poverty, protecting the natural environment, and promoting sustainable
agriculture. In the ten years since then, some progress has been made,
but not nearly enough. The Johannesburg Summit was designed to get
the ball rolling faster.
One of the positive aspects of this year’s summit was the presence
of nonprofit groups at the meeting. In Rio, delegates had the presence
of mind to make sure women’s groups, labor unions, indigenous
peoples, scientists, youth and others would have at least some place
at the table in future summits alongside representatives of government
and business. While the Johannesburg Summit was far from the shining
example of inclusiveness that organizers made it out to be, the presence
of dissenting voices did make some difference. The heavy preparation
and strong stance of these representatives are largely responsible
for the summit’s successes — including the agreement to
restore the world’s depleted fisheries by 2015.
Still, critics point out that most of what came out of the Johannesburg
Summit lacks teeth. For instance, the summit’s action plan for
clean
energy — the biggest issue tackled in Johannesburg — is
full of loose vagaries, rather than specific target goals and timetables
for each nation. One reason for this substantial failure was business’
intense push for voluntary self-regulation, in place of enforceable
policies designed to protect the environment. A lobbying group called
the Business Council for Sustainable Development — a coalition
of many large corporations, including Dow Chemical, Bayer, BP and
Coca-Cola — pushed self-regulation the hardest. It’s interesting
to note that the family of the organization’s founder, Stephan
Schmidheiny, owns the cement company Holcim, which has a long legacy
of being fined for its violations of clean air regulations.
Unfortunately, that did not stop voluntary self-regulation from also
being championed at the summit by the Bush administration, represented
in Johannesburg by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, rather than
by President Bush himself. The wishy-washy environmental policies
advocated by the US delegation irked many people at the summit, who
feel that immediate, concrete action must be taken to safeguard our
environmental health and well being.
For more information, visit the official
website of the Earth Summit.
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