By David Loyn
openDemocracySeptember 5, 2002
It is easy to knock the World Summit on Sustainable Development. After ten days of concentrated negotiations, often going on well into the night, Friends of the Earth could find only two new and specific targets in the final document, dealing with sanitation and the protection of the seas. They condemned the whole exercise as a betrayal, while other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) called it ‘fossilised', or the ‘World Summit for Sustained Deprivation'.
But the summit achieved more than that. In talking about trade, the environment and poverty for the first time in the same place, it cast a wide net – not really ‘Rio plus 10', rather a search for a different vision ‘to build a humane and caring global society', in the words of the final declaration. And it was a chance to wrest back the international agenda away from the ‘war against terrorism'. America's global war has dominated most other international gatherings, such as the launch of a new trade round by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Doha in the weeks after 11 September 2001, and the Financing for Development conference in Monterrey, Mexico.
American cynicism shocks Europe
But although this was not the place for American rhetoric about its global war, American cynicism polluted the run-up to Johannesburg, after the Farm Bill raising subsidies for American farmers went through Congress just before the preparatory conference in Bali. Since the poorest nations see farm subsidies in rich nations as the biggest block against fair trade, this action knocked confidence in the whole Johannesburg process, causing substantial mistrust especially among the poorest countries who are increasingly refusing to be pushed around.
This meant that the Johannesburg summit began with far less already approved than is normal, and during the bargaining here even European delegates were privately shocked by the extent to which the United States has withdrawn from any multilateral view of the world that does not support its own narrow capitalist interests. Colin Powell's bullying final speech to the summit was shouted down by delegates and NGO activists. He was heckled as he justified the sending of GM maize as aid to Africa's famine victims.
In the negotiations, Johannesburg saw new alliances across horizontal and vertical divides. America was mostly backed by ‘JUSCANZ', a coalition including Japan and the old white commonwealth – Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
The horizontal divide pitted JUSCANZ against the EU, who are experienced at hammering out common positions after years of arguing around the table in Brussels and a significant force in the negotiations here, wielding a big club in development. Europe's agreed target for development spending of 0.39% of GDP is three times as large as America's contribution, although nowhere near the long-agreed target of 0.7% of GDP for development funds. In committee after committee, American negotiators were unwilling to commit themselves to anything more than fine words, avoiding specific targets or spending plans.
The vertical divide put north against south, with the added nuance at Johannesburg that the richer countries in the non-developed world are oil producers, who all opposed the setting of renewable energy targets for their own short-sighted advantage.
But the key to the summit was that it was more about the poor than the environment. The International Development Secretary Clare Short, as always forthright, told me that, although she had nothing against pandas, it was ‘morally repugnant' to put the future of the environment before the needs of people. This view, defining concern for the environment as being mainly about the management of resources, took the upper hand here, in contrast to Rio.
In the negotiations, Europe's two key demands – to double the number of people with access to safe sanitation, and to set targets for renewable energy – were pushed hard for a week. But the day after the EU won sanitation, it conceded renewable energy, trading clean air for clean toilets. Environmentalists claim that much more was given away as well, mocking the stated successes in preserving fish stocks, reducing hazardous chemicals, and preserving biodiversity.
Globalisation divides rich and poor
But the biggest change since the world first discovered the environment at Rio, in those hopeful years after the Berlin Wall came down, was globalisation. Although there was none of the violence, which marred summits such as Seattle and Genoa, the strength of feeling at Johannesburg was no less intense. There was a straight divide between rich and poor over whether globalisation is a good thing, and then there were days and nights of argument over whether to include a reference to the WTO trade round. It is meant at last to be a trade round for the poor but, stung by years of broken promises at the WTO, the least developed countries do not believe it. In the end, the visionary environmental activist in Ethiopia's delegation, Dr Tewolde Egzhiaber, proposed deleting any reference to the WTO and, after substantial lobbying in the corridors by NGOs, this was agreed. Sustainable development, with this UN backing, should now take priority over other demands when trade is next negotiated.
NGOs faced strange treatment at this summit. South Africa was embarrassed by not making more of a success of the anti-racism summit in Durban last year. That summit foundered because of an unbridgeable divide over whether zionism is racist, and the myth has grown up that the problems ballooned across from passions raised in the NGO tent next door. Although this is a slight rewriting of history, the myth was powerful enough to persuade the government here to try to marginalise NGOs as much as possible. They were divided across several sites, with the majority having access only to an unappealing exhibition centre fifteen miles away from the glittering towers of the Sandton convention centre. This was a disgraceful way to treat individuals, often poor, who had raised the money to come.
But despite this treatment of the majority, the bigger NGOs managed to find their way into the summit, some as part of delegations themselves. Others realised South African tactics early enough to arrange a parallel ‘People's Earth Summit' close enough to Sandton to make a difference. Some of the NGO negotiators have been around at these events longer than the civil servants and ministers, and even find themselves working as unofficial go-betweens during tense talks. And, while this part of civil society was making itself felt, the more controversial non-government presence of big business was also very visible.
BMW mounted a large exhibition at the heart of the convention area to show off a car, which runs on hydrogen and makes water as its only exhaust. And there was a business day, which took world leaders to a nearby Hilton hotel to share insights with people who control bigger budgets than many of the countries represented in the summit. Tony Blair's only public appearance at the summit, apart from his conference speech, was to launch an initiative to engage business in sustainable development. The involvement of business was where the impact of globalisation was most apparent, and this summit marks a significant step in the shift of power in the world from traditional multilateral institutions to a more diffuse and less democratically accountable process.
There was no violence at Johannesburg, but the largest body of protestors at the one major anti-summit demonstration were people adversely affected by privatisation. Those facing a steep rise in water and power costs, following so-called public/private partnerships insisted on by South Africa's development partners, could only file past the bales of barbed wire which protected those planning similar solutions for much of the world.
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