News from Johannesburg

>From: Ari Lampinen <ala@cc.jyu.fi>
>To: Inesnet <inesnet@fy.chalmers.se>
>Subject: 9/11/02: USA evolved as #1 rogue nation
>
>USA Today had a cover story on August 14 2002 on the sentiments of
>Bush administration policy across the world. It included a photo of a
>demonstration in London with a large US map with text "#1 ROGUE NATION".
>
>Orwellian language was also used by International Herald
>Tribune in its editorial on September 7-8 2002 on the results of the
>Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development: they quoted somebody
>as calling USA and OPEC alliance as "AXIS OF OIL". Behind this, as the
>editorial puts it was that "the conference was diminished by the
>unenthusiastic participation of the United States" and the OPEC/USA cartel
>succeeded in their goal "to oppose clear and binding targets to
>increase the use of solar and wind power".
>
>The renewable energy issue was the last one to be agreed in the WSSD Plan
>of Implementation. It was the most important thing for the Bush
>administration not to have any targets and timetables for the energy
>sector transformation towards sustainable development. Because the opposite
>was a top priority for the EU this issue was settled only after US succeeded
>in getting G77, i.e. the group of virtually all developing countries to
>support its stand in exchange of having targets included for health
>sector, another major theme of the summit where US had blocked concrete
>action until the tradeoff.
>
>As one EU negotiator put it, the USA is the main stumbling block of
>international negotiations.
>
>The continuation of the selfish unilateralism of the Bush administration
>and its faithful mate Australia was recognized by the audience of the final
>plenary of the WSSD in September 4, in the reactions to the speeches of
>parties given after the adoption of the Plan of Implementation. All except
>the two countries received applauds. Australia was the only country whose
>final speech received total silence. And the USA was the only one that
>was greeted with spontaneous boos from the audience of ministers, diplomats
>and stakeholders from almost 200 countries. This was the second time I
>witnessed this code of diplomatic conduct: in Bonn climate conference
>last year, when the political concensus of the Kyoto protocol details was
>reached with USA the only country out of 179 parties to disagree, the US
>speech was the only one receiving booing and all the other were applauded to.
>
>In its intervention after the adoption of the WSSD Plan of Implementation
>USA made several reservations including:
>- USA does not recognize the Rio principle #7, i.e. common and
> differentiated responsibilities. It means that USA regards unfair that
> they would be expected to do more than developing countries to fight
> environmental and development problems.
>- USA does not recognize the United Nations target of 0.7% of GDP to
> official development aid, or any other ODA target.
>- USA interprets that the text regarding corporate accountability
> improvements does not require any new actions.
>- USA announces that it will not accept any of the biodiversity text to
> evolve into legally binding commitments. And they also gave the
> impression that this applies to rest of the text as well.
>And USA announced that they take sustainable development very seriously.
>
>The official plenary speech of Colin Powell earlier the same day had the
>same attitude and it was interrupted several times by loud booing. The
>Wall Street Journal described in its editorial September 6-8 these
>incidents the following way: "How little interest some of the delegates
>had in a rational discussion of their first principles was on display
>Wednesday, when US Secretary of State Colin Powell was jeered and
>interrupted as he attempted to address the US approach to environmental
>issues and economic growth." For Wall Street Journal the purpose of
>the WSSD was to "develop international environmental bureaucracy" in the
>name of "phantom threats" with the result of "keeping the poor from
>improving their lot".
>
>It is necessary to note that the business and industry sector did not
>share the US views in the WSSD. On the contrary, they strongly promoted
>corporate accountability and targeted actions in most areas.
>
>Thus, it is exceptionally small minority of people that the Bush
>administration has so strongly devoted to serve, with exceptionally little
>consideration of the rest.
>
>
>Regards,
>Ari Lampinen
>Finnish society for environmental sciences

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elohimjl