[Nasional-e] A 'disappointing' success

[Ambon]

A 'disappointing' success

Ten days of haggling about the Earth's future in Johannesburg, South Africa,
have yielded an action plan and a political declaration, though both are
less ambitious that they might have been.
The 192 governments represented and the more than 100 heads of state in
attendance partially squandered a grand opportunity to showcase a new sense
of solidarity and propel the world down the road to sustainability. Although
a few new concrete targets were hashed out, the niggling over numerical
targets and other petty debates tarnished the atmosphere and summit
agreements.
Thirty years after the groundbreaking U.N. Conference on the Human
Environment and a decade after the Rio Conference on Environment and
Development, countries were to unite under the umbrella of sustainable
development in Johannesburg. Sadly, the World Summit on Sustainable
Development opened and closed under a cloud of pessimism, in stark contrast
to the wave of optimism that participants rode out of the Rio Earth Summit a
decade ago.
Overall the latest summit was a disappointing success. It succeeded by
meeting the most meager qualifications for nations cobbling together and
agreeing on an implementation plan and political declaration. It was
disappointing because some important goals were left unrealized, and a sense
of commitment was lacking.
Indeed, the mixed bag of results lends some justification to some skeptics'
stinging assessment that the millions of dollars spent to have the
40,000-plus participants convene and accomplish what they did could have
been better spent helping the 1.1 billion people without access to adequate
drinking water or the one-fifth of the world's population that is estimated
to live on less than one dollar a day.
Japan, along with the United States and oil-producing nations, helped to
scuttle a plan to set numerical time-based targets to increase the use of
renewable energy -- this despite Japan's domestic target of boosting
renewable energy to 3 percent by 2010 (or 7 percent if hydropower is
included). Likewise, a bold call to reverse the mass extinction we are
imposing on flora and fauna was rolled back as leaders favored
"significantly" slowing the pace at which biodiversity is disappearing.
Still, some progress was made. Governments set a numerical target on water
and sanitation, agreeing that people lacking access to clean drinking water
and sanitation should be halved by 2015. In addition, countries pledged to
restore depleted fisheries by the same date, species extinction rates are to
be slowed by 2010 and harmful chemicals are to be phased out by 2005. These
numerical goals are a crucial yardstick for maintaining accountability and
building momentum toward a more sustainable world.
Although participants failed to agree on a date for putting into effect the
Kyoto Protocol, which commits industrialized countries to reducing
greenhouse gas emissions, Russia's announced backing of the pact at the
summit brightened prospects that it could possibly be brought into force
within the year.
The United States was put on the hot seat as President George W. Bush
elected not to attend, instead sending Secretary of State Colin Powell. Mr.
Powell in turn was jeered by summit participants who saw the U.S. as one of
the major obstacles in the sustainability debate.
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should be commended for making the trek and
pledging 250 billion yen to boost education in poor countries.
The question in Johannesburg was whether countries could set aside private
interests for the greater whole. To some extent, some did. Clearly there is
no magic bullet for poverty and the myriad environmental scourges we face.
We can only hope that the glacial pace national leaders have set is enough
to forestall the potentially calamitous consequences of not addressing them.
As before the summit, success depends on all of us helping those mired in
poverty and on reducing the unsustainable rate of consumption of the Earth's
resources.
Although the summit goals are less ambitious than they might have been, they
still require cooperation. Perhaps the biggest problem with Johannesburg
remains that, even with the few agreed numerical targets, it is not clear
how countries are to avoid the pitfall that undermined the Rio agreements a
decade ago: namely, the failure to implement promises.
We can only echo the sentiments of South African President Thabo Mbeki: "The
critical matter as to whether Johannesburg succeeded or not is what happens
after this." The future will be the final arbitrator of the outcome in
Johannesburg, and it depends upon us.
The Japan Times: Sept. 7, 2002
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