"The Ecologist" magazine recently compared the official promises of the Stockholm (1972) and Rio (1992) conferences on environment and development with actual progress. At the Rio conference there was a commitment to "returning individually or jointly to 1990 levels of. anthro-pogenic emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. [by 2000]". Actually, carbon dioxide emissions had actually risen in the US, Japan, Canada and Australia by 2000. Whilst there were also promises on the conservation of the world's forests, 418m hectars of natural forest have been lost worldwide. Plans for the conservation of water and sustainable agriculture have met similar fates.
And the 2002 Earth Summit? There is no commitment on renewables. References to them in the declaration being replaced with "cleaner fossil fuels"'. There were only two actual commitments in the declaration: to halve by 2015 the number of people who do not have access to basic sanitation and to establish marine protected networks by 2012. There is a commitment by 2020 to ensure that chemicals are produced in ways that minimise significant harmful effects on human health, rather than questioning the need for chemicals, and the commitment on biological diversity is actually a backwards step. Charles Secrett, director of Friends of the Earth UK, commented that "The Earth Summit should have been about protecting the environment and fighting poverty and social destruction. Instead it has been hijacked by free market ideology, by a backward-looking US administration, and by the global corporations that help keep reactionary politicians in business."
Graeme Sherriff, Manchester Friends of the Earth (0161 834 8221, [email protected])