Late Breaking Eco News . . .

by Vinit Chouraria

Dear Friends and Fellow Journeyers upon our Fragile and Beautiful Planet,

The World Summit on Sustainable Development ended yesterday, leaving everyone with a strong sense of both important progress made as well as big potential missed.

The Summit itself, initiated 10 years ago in Rio, is part of a crucial and historic turning point for humanity, of coming together as an entire global community--including governments and all sectors of civil society--for the first time ever with the expressed purpose of working together to create the systems and policies that will allow us all to have the basics for a healthy life, and to live in harmony with our planet and with each other.

Looking back at all of human history up until just a few years ago, we see a continual march of competition and conquering of one culture by another, be it tribe, empire, or nation. Humans have seemingly not been capable of identifying with anything larger than their own clan, be that big or small. It has also only been some 500 years since we even realized that the earth is a round ball and very finite, and definitely not the center of the universe.

Now, at this breathtaking point in history, we are able to see and understand that we are truly one global human family (though some of us seem to be taking a little longer to get this). And with the recent global communications revolution, the experience of the global village is here, and now available to all.

Those of us blessed to be alive at this amazing time have both an awesome responsibility and opportunity. This century is indeed the jump time that Jean Houston talks about: the critical flashpoint where we as a humanity either make the quantum leap to a new civilization involving all of us and create the new golden era of human cooperation and harmony, or we don't, and we all die in our own excrement of pollution and squabbling--a hell of our own making.

It shall indeed be a century of intense challenge, no matter what the outcome. We do need to brace ourselves for natural calamities unlike any experienced so far. The environmental changes will pick up speed and intensify rapidly as masses of humans have massive impact--this we clearly know from science and measurable evidence. The population will almost double in 50 years, climate change and pollution will intensify and get much worse before it gets better, no matter how fast we move on controlling it. These are now known to be facts: we are indeed on a ship with a large fire burning out of control in the bow.

To return to 2002 and the Summit... The report card on achievements has been very mixed.

However, looking at the opportunity of the Summit aside from the tangible projects and commitments, we can certainly see the benefit and development of many important results of it. We move our collective awareness forward dramatically in both the nature and scope of the problems we face, as well as the potential solutions. We network and form new partnerships and projects between individuals, organizations and nations. We exchange information and technologies. We communicate, express and challenge each other, whether one-to-one over coffee, international common interest groups in working seminars, or in huge multi-stakeholder forums. We join together in protest marches and demonstrations to express our feelings to our leaders. We live an amazing two weeks together with our brothers and sisters from all over the world, working to create the infrastructure of a world intentionally designed to work for everyone and to live in harmony with the planet. And we discover that, very fortunately, we are generally in agreement about what needs to be done... but still need to work through how we will do it, who will do what, and who will pay for what.

The US, as it became increasingly clear, posed the largest single obstacle to progress. Amazingly, the "Bush-less" US delegation took a hardline position of no commitments to any actual goal or timeline on virtually any issue. Following ten years of mostly disappointing progress since the Rio Earth Summit despite its brilliant and hard-won Agenda 21 blueprint for action, there has been clear consensus that very specific commitments to goals and timelines would be the only way governments could be held accountable for the changes they say they want to support. This was voiced by almost every national delegation and NGO present.

The US instead supports "specific partnerships and projects" together with vague intention languaging on the issues-such as "to reduce poverty over the coming years" rather than "to reduce poverty by 50% by the year 2015," as proposed by the European Union (EU), where poverty is defined as living on less than $1 a day. It was clear to everyone at the Summit that the US was essentially communicating a self-centered position in which they would continue to work on the issues in their own way, apart from the world community, and in a way that would leave corporations as free as possible to continue with their normal operations and profits.

Needless to say, for a country that is the world's biggest consumer of resources, the biggest polluter, and has by far the biggest economy (and hence the greatest ability to fund the necessary changes), this tight-fisted US position became very frustrating and angering to everyone. The politely said phrase "What are we going to do about the US?" became a common mantra here, reflecting the frustration and genuine koan of the Summit. (Apparently this line originated at a previous world conference in which a delegate had turned to a colleague in exasperation, while his microphone was unknowingly still on, and everyone in the hall heard it.)

Everything that is agreed upon in the Summit must be by full consensus. Thus, in order to be able to create any specific goals, intense last minute negotiations with the US had to be done, and finally it came down to trade-offs. One major example was achieving goals for water access for the poor in exchange for no goals for renewable energy sources (a huge "victory" for the oil business both in the US and OPEC Arab countries).


The specific agreements achieved are the following:

Water/Sanitation

To cut in half the number of people without access to proper sanitation--the cause of millions of deaths annually--by 2015. (This complements the previous goal of cutting in half the people without access to clean drinking water by 2015.)

Poverty

To establish a voluntary fund to eradicate poverty. (Obviously, this was one where the US position won out.)

Climate Change (global warming)

Kyoto Protocol now ratified by every country except US and Australia (it had previously not been signed by some key countries like Russia and Canada), enabling it to now go into effect. (The US and Australia are, not coincidentally, the two largest greenhouse gas producers in the world.)

Biodiversity

To "cut significantly" by 2010 the rate at which animals and plants are becoming extinct. (Again, no specific target-and no addressing of eco-system protection.)

Energy

To "take actions" to improve access to affordable and renewable energy sources. (The US position of non-commitment won out against strong disagreement by the EU.)

Health

A WTO regulation on patents should not prevent poor countries from providing medicines for all, especially for important AIDS medicines.

Chemicals

By 2020 chemicals will be made and used in ways to minimize harmful impact on humans and the environment. This will promote sound management of hazardous wastes.

Oceans

To restore depleted fish stocks by 2015, recognizing oceans are essential to ecosystems and a critical source of food, especially in poor countries.

Foreign Aid

To recognize that substantial increase in aid is needed for poor countries to meet development goals. It urges rich countries to give .7% of their national income. (It was a target first set in 1970, which only five countries-all of which are in Europe-have met. The US only gives .12%, the lowest of any developed nation.)

Global Trade

To facilitate trade with environmental protection. WTO rules cannot override environmental treaties. (This was a major victory for environmentalists.)

Governance

To recognize good governance nationally and internationally is essential for sustainable development. Rich nations wanted foreign aid tied to less corruption and more democracy.

Resources

To put strategy in place to preserve natural resources for future generations by 2006.

Precautionary Principle

To reaffirm the principle to act to protect the environment even if evidence of potential future damage to earth's ecosystem is not conclusive.

Common but Differentiated Responsibility Principle

To reaffirm all nations must try and save the planet, but rich nations are expected to shoulder more of the financial burden than poor nations. (Guess who objected to this one...fortunately it went through anyway.)

Where to go from here?

The Summit has thus established--and reaffirmed--initial guidelines for addressing the big current problems and moving towards a sustainable world. The world is in consensus in committing to this plan of action, and has said that this is doable. It is now up to governments (first) and civil society--both individuals and organizations--working together to further the agenda now set forth.

It is already a given that international problems, which require a large investment of money and effort, are not big priorities for most governments, nor are they for most people. Even in the poor countries, people are mostly focused on getting food on the table, and other basic needs. It is thus also a given that there will be backsliding on these commitments and guidelines, just as there were after the Rio summit. Fortunately, this has been foreseen by many and there have been many feedback systems put in place to monitor progress (or lack thereof), so we will know how we collectively are doing on our commitments and try to make the necessary changes to get back on track.

Fortunately, the European Union is emerging as the world leader in making sustainable development a high priority, and following through in many ways with their money and their actions. They also are a model of what is possible for the world in terms of forming a greater governing union of very different nations and cultures. Its formation involved--and still involves--huge challenges, but it is now beginning to reap major advantages in many areas, making Europe a stronger, more peaceful, more equal, and more unified region--while still maintaining the different and delightful cultural traditions of its member states.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the continent, we have the US, the world's lone superpower, who arrogantly feels itself to be so powerful in fact that it can do whatever it likes to get richer and richer at the expense of the entire world. And given that it currently spends $379 billion per year on its military, close to half of the entire world's military expenditures, why shouldn't it? The bully knows that no one would dare challenge him. Hey, pollution? As long as it won't get too bad before the next election year, we can worry about it later.

I don't know about you, but I won't be able to live with myself in explaining to my daughter why we've been willing to lose so many species, forests, corals, etc. etc. if I don't do everything in my power to stand up to the bully and let him know that his behavior is NOT OK. That means in my conversations, my e-mails, my purchases, my investments, my votes, my donations, my profession, my prayers.

I urge you all to make the inner commitment and take the outward action that will be required from all of us to turn around the massive forces already in motion, and have us make the jump to the planet we all envision, that we know is possible, that is waiting for our courageous stand.

In partnership,

Vinit Chouraria

Read Vinit's earlier report midway through the Earth Summit . . .