The World Summit on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit) in Johannesburg ended this week with the sounds of hecklers overriding U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech and a racous debate over whether or not the outcome of the summit was a success.

At a closing session, many environmentalists attacked the final plan as too weak to tackle major global problems. But still, International Counsel for Environmental Defense's Global Energy and Regional Air program Annie Petsonk, who attended the summit, said there were some successes. The first was the announcement by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kazyanov that Russia would ratify the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming.  With this week's ratification by Poland, Russia's expected ratification will provide the key step for the treaty's entry into force. 

"The announcement was doubly important because, with the failure to agree on renewable energy targets, the Kyoto Protocol remains the world's best hope for shifting to a more rational energy framework," Petsonk wrote in a report on the summit.  "And second, the U.S. had been lobbying many countries, including Russia, to cut separate, non-Kyoto side-deals with the U.S. on climate change."

A second success was Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's announcement that, in partnership with the World Bank, the Global Environmental Facility and WWF, it will protect 9 million hectares of Amazon rainforest, and will demarcate an additional 9 million hectares as sustainable-use protected areas, including extractive reserves. 

In announcing the commitment, President Cardoso tossed aside his prepared statement and gave a frank and impromptu speech underscoring the importance of extractive reserves in providing critical economic incentives for people who dwell within the reserves to protect them. 

"Other Latin presidents announced that they would seek to use the Kyoto Protocol's carbon market to advance forest protection," Petsonk said. "These statements indicate a growing awareness of the importance of economic incentives that engage local communities in tropical forest conservation."

Targets the summit set included halving by 2015 the 2.4 billion people without sanitation in the Third World;  minimizing the harmful effects from chemicals production by 2020;  and halting the decline in fish stocks by 2015.

"Following the promise of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, the Johannesburg meeting presented a historic opportunity to put forward a plan of action with concrete targets for delivering clean water, sanitation, health care, renewable energy, and other goals," noted Petsonk. "Such 'soft law' international action plans have formed an important foundation upon which to build subsequent binding environmental treaties. But at Johannesburg, faced with obstructionism, principally by the U.S. and OPEC, the conferees failed to achieve agreement on targets for most of the issues."

In his speech to the summit, Secretary Powell bore the brunt of international anger against President George W. Bush's refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty and other administration decisions that appear isolationist to other countries. The U.S. also formed a coalition with Saudi Arabia and other oil rich nations in opposing a timetable of shifting a percentage of global energy consumption to renewable fuel sources, ending hopes of a legal target mandating less-polluting energy production.

Hecklers chanted "Shame on Bush" and interrupted Powell's speech twice as he defended U.S. policies.  "We have reaffirmed the principle that sound economic management, investment in people and responsible stewardship of our environment are crucial for development," he said, eliciting jeers from activists.

What the summit truly revealed, according to Petsonk, is that "While political leadership for broad environment and development issues is sorely lacking, the world's best hope for tackling climate change, improving water management, and protecting forests, remains legally binding treaties like the Kyoto Protocol, whose market mechanisms will engage countries, companies and communities in the search for better, cheaper, faster ways of meeting environmental targets."

By Rose Palazzolo

Links

The United Nations' Earth Summit Web Site

Global Warming and Climate Change Fact Sheet

Human Rights and the World Bank

Export Credit Agencies in Sub-Saharan Africa