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Sharad Joshi

CHRONIC smokers unable to kick the habit like to tell the story about a smoker who finally allows himself to be persuaded by well-wishers' warnings about health hazards and steps out of his house to enjoy fresh morning air when a speeding truck knocks him down just outside the door. The moral of the story is: One may plan for a long-term sustainable life-style but cannot escape accidents.

The crowd that gathered in Johannesburg for the Earth Summit 2002, predominately concerned about protection of environment, was like a smoker resolving to kick the habit after seeing a speeding truck rushing inexorably towards him.

The primary concern of the world, particularly the rich world, is the threat posed by forces of international terrorism. The US and the UK are concerned about tinpot despots wielding and amassing weapons of mass destruction. No one can be sure that the US-UK attack on Iraq will not escalate into another world war. There were reports of a mile-long meteor speeding towards the Earth and could possibly hit the blue planet causing a major disaster comparable to the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

It was in this backdrop that the sequel to the Rio Earth Summit 1992 was planned at Johannesburg. Even without the war threat and ignoring other disasters-in-the-making, the Summit had a difficult agenda. The poverty in the developing countries shows little signs of alleviation. The under-privileged communities are struggling to merely survive. The gap between the rich and the poor countries is widening. Global resources are shrinking.

Since the end of the Second World War, most national governments and international organisations tried to achieve social and economic development through concerted international efforts in which the former were supposed to be the prime movers.

The futility of planned development has become patent since. After the fall of the USSR, all national and international statesmen are, on way to liberalisation and globalisation, fully convinced that state intervention does nobody any good. Most knowledgeable economists and sociologists now accept that economic freedom and technological advancement are the key to development and prosperity. This poses a serious problem for governmental representatives of the developing world. De-statisation may be good for their countries/peoples and for the world but not for the ruling classes. They would not easily abdicate their positions, and leave their fate to the uncertainty of the market and technology.

On the eve of the inauguration of the Summit, Zambia created a situation that summed up the imbroglio. Millions are starving in that country; millions more are threatened. The international community was all poised to ship required quantities of foodgrains. But the Zambian government would not allow the food supplies in, on the pretext that they consisted mainly of genetically-modified maize. It was concerned about the long-term consequences on life and environment of GM food and was prepared to let the poor Zambians starve to death.

At the main Summit venue, at Stanton, the richer quarters at Johannesburg, the developing world's representatives were hoping the US President, Mr George W. Bush, would oblige them by attending the Summit and giving them an opportunity to give vent to all the pent-up bile against him and his policies. Mr Bush refused to oblige and sent his Secretary of State instead. India was represented, first, by the new External Affairs Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, and, thereafter by the Minister of Environment and Forests, Mr T. R. Baalu. The Petroleum Minister, Mr Ram Naik, was operating in the corridors, ostensibly to attract FDI.

The main players at Johannesburg were the busybodies of the NGOs. Unsure of the strength of their arguments, they had mobilised from the world over thousands to march and demonstrate in the streets of Johannesburg. Mr Nelson Mandela spoke about the problem of non-availability of drinking water and hygiene facilities, which suddenly shot into prominence as points on the agenda. The South African President, Mr Thabo Mbeki, stepped out of the conference palace to lead marchers from the Alexandra slum locality, thundering anti-poverty clichés.

The outcome of the Summit followed a pre-set pattern. It adopted a Declaration on Sustainable Development as also a Plan of Implementation. The Declaration reaffirmed the commitment of the world leaders to all decisions made at Stockholm, Rio-de-Janeiro, the Monterrey conference on finance development and the Doha ministerial conference of WTO, repeating all the worn out clichés. The Plan of Implementation talks of targets, time bound programmes and good governance as also contributions of the corporate sector. Most important, the summiteers agreed to continue to meet in pursuance of their set goals. The panoply of the summit is over. The poverty will continue; so will social problems and imbalanced utilisation of natural resources. All these will provide agenda for the future summits for decades if not centuries.

The Johannesburg Summit was doomed to be a `non-event', but it need not have been so much of a `non-event'. This summit might possibly go down in history for two things: One, for the first time the representatives of the developing countries have betrayed a sense of uneasiness about their position in the context of integration of markets, mobility of capital and increases in investment flows around the world. These might present special difficulties for the developing countries.

"...Unless we act in a manner that fundamentally changes their lives," reads the Declaration, "the poor of the world may lose confidence in the representatives and the democratic systems seeing them as nothing more than sounding brass and tinkling cymbals." Picturesque imagery!

Two, this might be the beginning of the decline of the UN. In the early days of the UN, the nations — rich and poor — were concerned about "the scourge of the war which has ravaged the world twice in a generation." Later on, as the social economic functions, technical assistance programmes and international aid became predominant, the conflict between the developing and the developed world became increasingly stark and followed a set pattern in all debates in the UN fora.

Unctad was formed by the initiative of the developing countries so that they could have a platform of their own in the UN system. The advent of the WTO has pushed Unctad to the shadows. It is clear that the developing countries are now trying to promote Earth summits as a platform to be able to continue to demand high levels of international aid and transfer of technology.

Every paragraph in the Summit Declaration starts with the pronoun "We". In the early paragraphs the "We" denotes all the nations present at the Summit — rich and poor. Then there are other paragraphs where "We" denotes only the developing countries.

"In this regard, to contribute to the achievement of our development goals and targets, we urge developed countries that have not done so much to make concrete efforts towards the internationally agreed levels of Official Development Assistance" (para 22: Declaration).

Is it the beginning of a split of the UN? Not by itself, but combined with the threatened attack on Iraq the new trend might end up in the G-77 becoming a small UN unto itself.

Tail piece: The tanker Jolly Rubino containing petroleum products sank near the shores of South Africa just as the Summit was being wrapped up. One does not know if that was the crescendo of the demonstrations staged through out the week by the environmentalists in order to make their point even more forcefully. Environmetalists and the developing world champions are so desperate that they will fight shy at nothing.

(The author is Founder Shetkari Sanghatana. He can be contacted at sharad@mah.nic.in)

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