OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Tuesday
IN the years since the landmark Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the world has forged ahead to feed, clothe and house its people – at a steep environmental expense, organisers of the next summit said.
A decade after Rio, world leaders and environmentalists will gather again in Johannesburg in 2002 to review the outcome of the ambitious goals adopted in 1992. They also will be tackling new issues – chief among them globalisation.
Organisers of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, meeting for a first planning meeting on Monday, said they were keenly aware that policymakers have failed to carry out many of the Rio goals.
Some environmental issues – such as greenhouse gases – have garnered global attention over the decade, but deforestation and other destruction continues, said Emil Salim, the newly elected chair of next year’s Earth Summit.
Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor is wider than ever, and hunger and poverty persist worldwide, summit organisers said.
“What Rio did was to generate a sense of hope, and I think we all have to accept that there is a certain disappointment in the fulfilment of that,” said Nitin Desai, the UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs.
Sustainable development – taking the social and environmental impact of every economic decision into account – was the touchstone of Rio, an unprecedented gathering of leaders from 178 countries, including more than 100 heads of state.
Five years later, the Kyoto Protocol sought to reduce the level of greenhouse gases, which many scientists believe contribute to global warming, by asking industrialised countries to cut head-trapping emissions.
But Salim said recent rejection of the protocol show that some leaders have failed to truly incorporate sustainable development. U.S. President George W. Bush decided late last month to pull out of the Kyoto treaty, saying stricter limits on gas emissions could further weaken the US economy.
Next year’s Earth Summit delegates also will have to deal with a new driving economic force: globalisation.
“Globalisation was not a term known in 1992,” Desai noted.
Representatives of non-governmental organisations urged summit organisers to focus on the social impact of environmental destruction, particularly poverty.
Sustainable development is not possible while millions live in poverty and industrialized nations keep consuming the earth’s resources, said Michelle Pressend of the South African NGO Forum Host Committee. Climates are changing, natural habitats disappearing and rare species becoming extinct, she said.
“There is no more time to waste. We know we need to work together,” Pressend said.
No date has been set for the 2002 summit. The organising Commission on Sustainable Development has planned regional preparatory meetings throughout the year.