Some 110 ministers from around the globe began meeting on Wednesday in an attempt to draw up a declaration on promoting development while protecting the environment before the Johannesburg Earth Summit.
But lower-level delegates, who for more than a week have been negotiating a draft action plan to be approved at Johannesburg, were still at loggerheads over several crucial issues such as financing and timetables for action.
More than 3 000 government officials and activists from 173 countries are meeting on the resort island of Bali to try to bridge differences before the World Summit on Sustainable Development, dubbed Earth Summit II, in August.
The delegates have been at work since May 27 on the action plan, to be christened the Bali Commitment, but have yet to reach agreement. Officials said the negotiations would now likely run parallel with the ministerial meeting.
The environment and development ministers will not discuss the action plan but are expected to hammer out policies to follow up the Bali Commitment and finally come up with a political declaration to be adopted in Johannesburg.
Environmentalists have expressed doubt that the negotiations will result in a satisfactory agreement to safeguard the environment. The previous Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, has yet to see its goals met.
Some 300 mainly local people staged a protest outside the conference centre, accusing rich countries of using the meeting to promote free markets and globalisation instead of tackling poverty.
Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, in a speech opening the ministerial conference, expressed concern about the over-exploitation of natural resources in developing countries. But she urged richer states to offer solutions rather than alienating them.
”We witness how those nations still depend much on their struggle to build the future on natural resources,” Megawati said.
”They often see the issue of conservation as a luxury. ”They need to have a safety net and funding resources to secure their plans and development programs.”
UN Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette said reaching ”full agreement” in Bali on the action plan was crucial for the success of the Johannesburg summit.
Emil Salim, chairman of the summit preparatory committee, said on Tuesday that delegates were close to agreement on the plan, which covers water and sanitation, energy, agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystems and health.
He said negotiations had been tough because delegates wanted realistic and achievable targets and timetables.
Developing countries have called for stronger references to ways of financing sustainable development and a greater commitment by developed countries to open their markets wider to trade and to transfer technology.
The EU and many developing countries want the Johannesburg summit to adopt a proposal that 15% of all energy consumption worldwide should come from clean, affordable and renewable sources within eight years.
The United States and some other developed states, including Japan, Australia and Canada, have been reluctant to add new targets and set timetables.
They said many targets had already been set at the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000 that called for the halving, by 2015, of the number of people living on less than one dollar a day and the number with no access to clean water.
The UN says 1,2-billion people still live below the poverty line while 1,1-billion people lack access to clean drinking water and power. – Sapa-AFP