Earth Summit Update

national | miscellaneous | news report Saturday August 31, 2002 14:23 by Graham Caswell caswell at indigo dot ie

Issue # 5 of ECO Equity

ECO Equity - the NGO newsletter published each day during the Earth Summit- offers a Mid-Summit Assessment of the Earth Summit. While there's a lot of brinkmanship in the negotioations and nothings over until the final agreement is signed, it's not looking great.

Issue # 5 of ECO Equity - the NGO newsletter published each day during the Earth Summit- offers a Mid-Summit Assessment of the Earth Summit.

"In sector after sector of the discussion, timidity and self-interest have prevailed. In paragraph after paragraph, the ‘actions’ that survive are watered down ver-sions of commitments already made in other fora. And that’s not the worst. In key areas such as biodiversity and chemicals, we are going backwards".

Full newsletter available at www.earthsummit-ireland.org/updates.htm

Also in this issue:

-“Lifestyles of the Rich and Voluntary”: Will corporate accountability be a key outcome of the summit, or will governments, led by the US, make complience Voluntary?

-Negotiators: Do Not Give up on Precaution. The Precautionary Principle, adopted in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, is being weakened

-Follow-up Process: Where Art Thou? What happens once targets are agreed?

-Debt Sustainability Unhinged from Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). The US and the EU seem to have forgot-ten their commitment to achieving the MDGs by 2015.

-But There’s Been No Back-Sliding on Trade! The latest draft Means of Implementation text on Trade and Finance mentions: “The Doha work programme” 22 times, “In a manner consistent with WTO rights and obligations” three times ( in crucial places!), and “Public-private” 14 times.

-sUStained consumption. Efforts by the US and G77 are weakening the wording in this area.

-Biodiversity: Down the Drain?

-Ten Percent Alliance Takes Off—Brazilian Energy Initiative Picks up Steam

-Blame It On the Media (How Canada is blaming the media for its terrible environmental record)

-WHO OWES WHOM? The Coordinating Body of Central American Indigenous Peoples and Small-Scale Farmers in Community Agroforestry asks why big corporations own the resources while they seem to own the costs of conservation.

-DON’T RUSH NEPAD (New Partnerships for Africa’s Development) THROUGH. Njogu Barua, Coordinator of the East African NGO Coalition on WSSD says NEPAD does not adequately address poor governance and corruption in Africa, eradication of conflicts and wars, weak and incoherent leadership structures, debt cancellation and recogni-tion of past wrong-doing to Africa, such
as slavery and colonialism.

Other snippets from this issue.....

Greenpeace released a survey yesterday which revealed that 63 percent of Canadians believe the Prime Minister should apologize to the world for Canada's broken Rio commitments.

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At the end of a fluffy briefing on the magnificant (private) partnerships the US is offering to help feed the world, eradicate AIDs, abate air pollu-tion, encourage energy conservation, build housing in South Africa, and save the Congo Basin, a pointed ques -tion intruded. “I just wanted to clarify some-thing,” the questioner asked. “Is it true that the agricultural partnership involves the biotechnology industry and will mean the spread of genetically modified foodstuffs?” Yes indeed, said Claude Allen of the US Department of Health and Human Services. GMOs are safe, he insisted, and in the case of corn safer than the natural item.

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The cost of....

Basic education for all: $6 billion
Cosmetics in the US: $8bn

Water & basic sanitation for all: $9bn
Ice cream in Europe: $11bn

Basic health & sanitation for all: $11bn
Pet food in Europe $17bn

Eco-equity is published by Consumers International, the Danish 92 Group, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth International, Greenpeace, Northern Alliance for Sustainability, Oxfam International, and WWF.

The full eco-equity newsletter is available in PDF format on the Earth Summit Ireland website along with all issues released since the beginning of the summit.