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Shameful Summit

Protests at Johannesburg Earth Summit; Bush called 'biggest obstacle'

(ENS) -At least 105 presidents and prime ministers, along with an estimated 65,000 government representatives, NGOs and business leaders, attended the world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg, South Africa in late August and early September. But activists staged protests at a variety of sites to protest what they saw as a lack of positive action. A Greenpeace spokesman said, "The Earth Summit has failed to take action against dirty energy policies which are fueling climate change." Another spokesperson said, "The Earth Summit was on the brink of bringing corporations like Shell and BP to task, by making them accountable for the damage they do. But that hope has been being undermined. Once again governments are caving in and allowing company profits to dictate government policy."

Throughout the world conference, held on the tenth anniversary of a similar conference in Rio de Janeiro, governments failed to agree on targets for increasing production of renewable energy, due in part to pressure from the US and energy industry lobbyists. US opposition also undermined an early agreement to develop an intergovernmental framework that would make corporations accountable for their actions and pollution. "Big business and polluting governments like the US have joined forces in Johannesburg once again to deny people the right to clean and safe energy," said Greenpeace. "They are also trying to undermine any attempts to make corporations accountable for the devastation they bring not just to the climate but also to local communities."

"Esso, Shell and BP are sending our climate up in smoke," said Karsten Smid, a climate expert with Greenpeace. "At the Earth Summit, the US and Saudi Arabia joined hands with the oil lobby to prevent greater support for renewable energy forms. Esso and its parent company ExxonMobil, in particular, are sabotaging climate protection."

In an August 2 letter to Bush, obtained by Greenpeace, oil lobbyists paid by ExxonMobil urged Bush not to attend the World Summit, and applauded his opposition to signing new international environmental treaties. "The least important global environmental issue is potential global warming, and we hope that your negotiators at Johannesburg can keep it off the table," the letter reportedly stated.

Summit attendees did pledge to take steps to increase energy efficiency, boost the use of renewable energy, and begin to phase out subsidies for fossil fuels, "where appropriate," but for many those pledges were not enough. Outside the final plenary session, dozens of protesters wore stickers that said "No More Shameful Summits," and refused to be moved until South African police herded them into a group and propelled them out of the public square. "Governments failed to do the job," said Greenpeace climate policy director Steve Sawyer. "Now it's up to all of us."

The summit did make some commitments to improve the lives of people living in poverty and to reverse the degradation of the global environment. Nations agreed on targets to reduce the proportion of people lacking access to clean water or proper sanitation, to restore depleted fisheries, to preserve biodiversity, and to phase out toxic chemicals. For the first time countries committed to increasing the use of renewable energy "with a sense of urgency."

Green Cross International President Mikhail Gorbachev was joined by other Nobel Peace Laureates in calling for rapid action to stem the earth's environmental degradation and place the whole of humanity on the path to sustainable development. The International Union of Students, the International Youth and Student Movement for the UN and the South African Youth Council said "the rich and powerful have blocked the road to sustainable development and generated meager results from this summit. We are outraged by one government in particular, the US, and its attempts to undermine and sabotage agreements at this summit."

"The Bush administration is the biggest obstacle to the success of the World Summit on Sustainable Development," said Leslie Fields, director of International Programs for Friends of the Earth US, following the speech of US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the plenary session of world leaders. Powell was booed and jeered when he defended genetically modified food aid to starving countries of southern Africa, and when he said the US is committed to combating global warming.

Philip Clapp, president of the Washington, DC-based National Environmental Trust said, "Worst of all, on climate change it's a huge step backward. The Bush administration formed its own axis with Venezuela and OPEC nations - its own axis of oil." Clapp said the Bush administration blocked European Union-supported proposals to increase the percentage of energy production from renewable sources to 15 percent by 2015. "Utilities are the source of 40 percent of America's global warming pollution. We will not begin to cut those emissions unless utility companies begin to invest seriously in renewable energy resources. They have failed to make those investments for the past decade, and our global warming emissions have risen by over 13 percent," said Clapp.

South African President Thabo Mbeki said the world is "in crisis, a world in which our resolve to bequeath to future generations a sustainable and viable future has been found wanting....We see a world that is ailing from poverty, inequality and environmental degradation, despite the agreements at the Rio Earth Summit.... This is a world in which a rich minority enjoys unprecedented levels of consumption, comfort and prosperity, while the poor majority endures daily hardship, suffering and dehumanization."