D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 6, November/December 2002, p. 19-20)

Non-Governmental Organisations were generally critical of the results of the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). The following comment explains why their reaction was mainly negative.

Although the preliminary negotiations (PrepCom) in New York and Bali had hardly encouraged expectations of major breakthroughs at the World Summit in Johannesburg on important topics such as globalisation, trade issues and climate policy, the principle of hope still prevailed in many cases. The summit brought together more countries than ever before at a UN conference: 190 states sent delegations. Ten years after the birth of Agenda 21 at the Earth Summit in Rio, Johannesburg was to stand for implementation and action plans. "Rio gave us a road map, but that was not good enough. We need a timetable," said Nitin Desai, the summit's General Secretary, on the first day of the conference.

Drawing up a timetable proved to be very difficult, of course. On one side stood the group of the developing and threshold countries, which attempted to tie together the interests of not only the poorest countries but also, for example, those of the oil-producing states. They swung sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another.

Putting on the brakes

By contrast, the USA and a number of other countries such as Australia and New Zealand, which hid behind the Americans, played mainly a braking role. Time and again, they resisted entering into internationally binding agreements. Evidently the line taken by George Bush Jr was the same as that of George Bush Sr at the time of the Rio conference: the American way of life is not a matter for negotiation. The US government delegation favoured the so-called Type II initiatives - voluntary projects between governments, companies and other actors. Some other delegations feared - especially in view of the pushy self-projection by some companies - that in the negotiations the voluntary initiatives would overshadow the binding international agreements. In the end, however, this concern proved to be unfounded.

As the third important actor at the summit, the European Union sought to play a mediating role between the other blocks. Moreover, the EU went to the conference with the ambitious intention of achieving concrete targets and timeframes in as many sectors as possible. But internal differences repeatedly weakened its own position.

So Johannesburg was again only a summit of the lowest common denominator. The results depict what was achievable in realpolitik terms in the international community. They are insufficient and not appropriate to the urgency of the global problems. Thus, sustainable development is far from guaranteed and there is little reason for satisfaction.

But there was progress in some sectors. The number of people without access to clean water and sanitation facilities is to be halved by 2015, the countries committed themselves to do something against over-fishing of the seas and to achieve a clear reduction in the use of dangerous chemicals, and when utilising biodiversity, there is to be a more equitable distribution of the benefits. These agreements, whose wording is often soft and non-binding, are offset by a very disappointing accord on expanding the use of renewable energy sources. And important topics such as opening markets and reducing subsidies were not even discussed due to American resistance and disagreement within the EU. If the European Union had made concessions in this area, which the French government delegation in particular blocked out of consideration for their country's farmers, the conference probably would have got a quite different dynamism.

The Rio principles
were reaffirmed

An important success of the summit was that it reaffirmed Rio's paradigm of sustainability. Thus, the so-called Rio principles - particularly the principle of prevention and the principle of joint but different responsibility of the countries - were held on to. There were forces which wanted to turn back the whole process. But that attempt was successfully defeated, not least by the NGOs.

The fundamental recognition by the international community that globalisation must be given political shape is another important result of the World Summit. The decision to take up the private sector on its promises more intensively in the sense of the Rio principles, and repulsing of the attempt to subject the global agreements for the protection of the environment to the rules of the World Trade Organisation manifest the determination not to leave poverty reduction and environmental protection to the primacy of the economy and the free play of market forces. But at the same time the countries' representatives in Johannesburg omitted to agree on binding social and ecological regulations for companies or on a working programme aimed at drawing up such regulations.

Financing for development
was not a topic

It was also an omission that the World Summit gave hardly any thought to innovative forms of financing for development (a currency transaction tax, charges for use of global goods), but rather rested on the wilted laurels of Monterrey. The question of how the internationally agreed Millennium goals, such as halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015, were to be financed remained open. Implementation of the Johannesburg goals in the sectors of drinking water supply and wastewater disposal also require substantial public investment - even if the private sector participates. The conference stuck to the goal of making 0.7 per cent of donors' GNP available for official development cooperation, and at the wish of the developing countries the summit decided to create a World Solidarity Fund. But since this will be fed solely by voluntary donations, not too much importance should be attached to it.

Global problems will also in future be able to be solved only by negotiations between sovereign states. But in view of the short-sighted blockading stance of a number of countries it is necessary that governments which want to go forward should commit themselves to more ambitious goals and by this means take as many other countries as possible along with them. That is why the German Federal government is on the right path with its initiative to expand the use of renewable energy sources. In addition, the continuing pressure of civil society actors is still needed.