Earth Summit FAILURE: The REAL Eco-Terrorism

Earth Summit Failure:
The REAL Eco-Terrorism
By Priya Reddy
warcry [at] indymedia.org


"Economic development based on the destruction of nature is suicide. If the plants are animals are dying, guess who is next?" asked President Abel Pacheco of Costa Rica, speaking at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Pacheco announced that Costa Rica would no longer allow coal mining or oil exploration in Latin America's most environmentally progressive country, where 27% of the land is protected and 95% of the energy is renewable.

George W. Bush however, did not attend the summit this year, busy instead with planning the next oil war in Iraq. Reportedly, Bush was on an “extended vacation.” Environmental groups sent a postcard to the President “hoping that he was enjoying his holiday while the rest of the world met to try and save the planet.”

Ten years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the world stands even closer to the brink of ecological disaster. According to a recent report by the World Wildlife Fund, “…the human race is consuming the Earth's resources at a rate that is 20% faster than it can replenish itself. By 1999 humans were using 120% of the capacity of the global biosphere. At this rate we will need 2 more Earths to sustain current consumption trends as the population of the planet doubles in the next 50 years.” The UN estimates that 25-30 percent of all mammal species will become extinct in the next 30 years.

The intent of the Johannesburg Earth summit this week, was to create a plan of action to remedy various ecological crises – from global warming, and mass extinction to human rights and poverty issues. However, at its close, the summit was described as “the worst political sellout in decades" by Friends of the Earth, a Dutch environmental coalition.
Greenpeace points out that “…since the Rio Earth Summit ten years ago, …governments and corporations have continued largely with business as usual, pursuing a course of economic growth at any cost, with little respect for ecological limits. …Globally, we are conducting a war on the environment. Flagrantly unsustainable practices continue…”

With less than 5 percent of the world's population, the United States is the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases and is responsible for 25 percent of global emissions. At the first Earth Summit in Rio, initial steps were proposed to tackle global warming. This led to the Kyoto Protocol, which, if implemented would mean a reduction of 1% in global greenhouse gas emissions; however, according to the United Nations Inter-governmental panel on Climate Change [IPCC] a minimum 60% reduction is needed and warns that otherwise, “emissions will quadruple early next century.” Greenpeace candidly admits that while environmentalists argued with governments over articles and clauses at the Earth Summit, “…in the end, it will make little difference to the health of the planet.” Still, the Kyoto treaty is the only existing international agreement on global warming. It commits rich industrialized nations to reducing fossil fuel consumption. The US under Bill Clinton never ratified the Kyoto treaty, even as nations with presumably less respect for human rights, like Russia and China become signatories.

Currently governments spend 250-300 billion dollars every year on subsidies for fossil fuel industries, while cleaner energy solutions remain seriously under funded. “This summit delivers nothing on reducing the massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry which continue to prop up its dominance,” said a
Greenpeace spokesperson.

Shell is worth more than Morocco or Cuba. Exxon, with $63 billion, is worth more than Peru or New Zealand. Exxon gave $1.376 million to the Republicans in the 2000 election cycle - more than any other oil company. Shortly after he took the presidency, Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto Protocol, leaving the ambitious pact paralyzed. American opposition to Kyoto has guaranteed that global warming would only be a minor issue at the summit in Johannesburg. “This administration has so blatantly turned the White House into the East Coast branch office of Peabody Coal and Exxon/Mobil,” observes Ross Gelbspan, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of “The Heat Is on: The Climate Crisis, the Cover-Up, the Prescription, adding that “the stabilization of the global climate requires a 70 percent cut in our emissions. That threatens the survival of the fossil fuel industry, the largest commercial enterprise in history.”

Secretary of State Colin Powell was dispatched to South Africa, as the United States' official representative to the summit. When Powell claimed that the US was addressing global warming, defending bio-diversity and promoting renewable energy, “there was this incredible roar of disbelief, nobody stayed silent," said an activist inside the forum. When Powell chastised countries for rejecting US exports of genetically modified foods, “the room exploded in boos and howls of protest.” Powell appeared to develop a facial twitch, and was unable to speak for several minutes as chants of "Shame on Bush" filled the auditorium. A banner saying "Betrayed by Governments" was unfurled, as several activists were ejected from the premises by UN security forces.
Kenny Bruno, UN Project Coordinator for CorpWatch, and co-author of the upcoming book EarthSummit.biz – The Corporate Takeover of Sustainable Development, writes that ”the WTO and World Bank will be in Johannesburg, too, making sure environmental agreements don't interfere with free trade and corporate rights.”

Bruno explains that “at the US's insistence, the UN has essentially given up on …traditional, multilateral, negotiated agreements between governments.” The Bush Administration much prefers agreements that “are purely voluntary, aimed at getting private-sector money into UN-friendly projects. They also put major corporations close to the heart of international governance.” The Greenpeace summit report concludes, “…corporations are accountable only to the rules of a free market, free trade and a free for all on human rights and the environment.”

George Monbiot of the UK based newspaper, The Guardian, writes that ''the UN appears to be turning itself into an enforcement agency for the global economy, helping western companies penetrate new markets while avoiding the regulations which would be the only effective means of holding them accountable.”

Although the European Union and Brazil came to the Summit with proposals for investment in renewable energies as alternatives to coal and oil burning, any suggestion of targets or timelines were repeatedly blocked by the US, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, and Canada. Oxfam condemned the summit as a "triumph of greed and self-interest, a tragedy for the poor and the environment."

Groenfront, the Netherlands based environmental network which carried out direct actions such as lock downs and banner hangings, during the summit, observed that “it has become a ritual in UN conferences for the US… to actively weaken the proposals, and when the text is finalized to reject it anyway. The Europeans look good in comparison and come away a green image while at the same time not having to change much at all. The Summit is all talk, no action, while satisfying both the conscience and the image thing.”

Tony Blair, UK Prime Minister, proposed that “science and technology, combined with market incentives, could be harnessed to change behavior and combat climate change, mentioning technologies such as fuel cells in cars, offshore wind turbines and tidal energy.” The summit called for an increase of clean or renewable energy production from the current 2 percent to 15 percent by 2015, but again, set no deadlines.

Groenfront argues that “State and corporate establishments came together to make the world believe that development would now be sustainable, when in fact they merely consensed on globalizing capitalist dogmas; that ecological investment needs growth of the economy and growth needs global open markets, that pollution can only be reduced by trading in it, and if all fails, we should have a pious faith in technology to save us.”

The most useful plan that emerged at the summit, seeks to establish access to safe water and sanitation for at least half of the 1.2 billion people who currently lack such access. This is expected to save millions of children who die each year from diarrhea and malaria. However, the World Development Movement, concluded that “this summit has delivered absolutely nothing of any substance that will offer hope to the half of the planet that lives on less than $2 a day.”

“The United Nations needs to represent the needs of the world's poorest people, and fewer of the world's economic forces,” said Doreen Stabinsky, Science advisor to Greenpeace. “While CEOs of major corporations such as Dow Chemical, Monsanto, and various oil interests are joining in the official negotiations, civil society is locked out and marching the street.”

Indymedia, South Africa reported “scenes reminiscent of apartheid, as thousands who took to the streets of Johannesburg during the Earth Summit have been shot at, intimidated and jailed for exercising their democratic right to protest. The repression has been particularly severe as the South African state tries to silence any critical voices that might draw attention to its easy embrace of its role as local mediator of global capital.”

Addressing these problems “requires strong political action, and that requires activists to really pressure the media to cover this issue on an ongoing, consistent basis,” remarked Gelbspan on the closing day of the Earth Summit. “When people ask me about political action, I suggest that they not only demonstrate against Exxon/Mobil, or at these summits, but specifically pressure the media.” Citing the increased news coverage of recent floods, droughts and storms, Gelbspan suggests that the media should “insert a line that says - Scientists associate this pattern of violent weather with global warming - If they did, I think it would mobilize the public around this issue in 6 months.”