September 2002

A vital issue facing the world today is the question: Can coordinated international effort reduce poverty by promoting development, while stillpreserving the earth's natural resources.? The recent Summit on Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg, is the third conference to confront this difficult problem.

Not surprisingly, the meeting attended by many world leaders and ignored by President Bush, was highly contentious. The most heated issue was the setting of firm timetables for reducing oil and gas consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from oil and coal. The world is facing the fear of possibly devastating climactic change, mostly induced by the industrially developed countries. The U.S., Canada and Japan, and oil producing countries, the heaviest polluters, successfully blocked efforts to set timetables for the conversion from oil and gas to renewable sources of energy.

Some good news: Russia and China will ratify the Kyoto Treaty, setting restrictions on the release of carbon dioxide and other heat trapping greenhouse gases. This assures that the Kyoto Climate Treaty will go into effect, although much weakened by U.S. non-participation, as the U.S. is the producer of 25% of the world's greenhouse gases.

The U.S, has aroused considerable anger and concern by resisting the Kyoto Treaty, claiming that it only applies to industrialized countries. The problem is made more difficult because unindustrialized countries need to use resources for development. However anti-pollution devices which the U.S. is a leader in producing are too expensive for their economies.

One accomplishment: the Summit has promised to help supply affordable energy to some 2 billion people who have no access. Regrettably, there was no deadline, and not much support for the effort to boost renewable power.

Another contentious issue was trade. US Secretary of State Powell in his speech repeated the usual mantra that trade is the engine of development. However this is notably self-serving since the U.S. and the European Union are under no obligation to phase out their massive subsidies for agriculture and some industries, subsidies which make many Third World exports non-competitive, worsening their economies and promoting poverty.

On the immediate bottom line needs for improvement in primitive sanitation and impure drinking water, conditions which presently produce great numbers of illnesses and preventable deaths, progress was made. The Summit agreed on several goals:

• Halving the 2.4 billion people without sanitation by 2015.
• Minimizing harmful effects from chemical production by 2020;
• Halving decline of fish stock by 2015.
• Significantly reducing the number of endangered species by 2010. This is important both as a measure of the total health of the planet and a reflection of the health of the people who inhabit it.
  
  

On the difficult issues of renewable energy the conference was a disappointment to environmentalists. Kofi Annan responded that in spite of too high expectations, the world's agenda has moved forward.

Emerging from these conferences with their heated divisions and inevitable conflicts of interest, the question has to be put: are they a waste of time?

The answer is no. Conferences are useful for several reasons. Firstly, the persistent reiteration of these vital global issues is necessary to bring about real action. Secondly, they energize the groups promoting these issues, on whose advocacy the world's wellbeing may depend. Thirdly, many leaders are persuaded into commitments which can be monitored if efforts for improvements are not maintained. Finally, where else in the public realm can world issues be discussed with so much passion and knowledge.

Sylvain and Phyllis Ehrenfeld