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Earth Summit > Background
> Issues
The Issues at the Johannesburg Earth Summit
Since the Rio Earth Summit, the world's governments
and corporations have largely continued with business as usual.
Though some progress has been made, the planet's
environment is more damaged and more under threat now than in 1992.
Existing commitments under environmental treaties are not being
met, and we now have powerful trade agreements that are regarded
as more important than the environmental treaties by the governments
that in theory support both.
Governments continue to support industries that
pollute and destroy. For example, governments subsidise conventional
energy, mainly fossil fuels, to the tune of $US250-300 billion per
year, while arguing that renewable energy is not cost-competitive.
"Environment" has long been linked in
with development to provide a concept of "sustainable development"
but somewhere along the way governments have started using "sustainable
development" to mean "economic growth" and the environmental
component is being lost.
At the same time, the gap between developed and
developing countries continues to widen, sowing the seeds of future
unrest.
The World Bank
says the wars of this century will be fought over resources, yet
globally we continue to deplete resources. We are in fact waging
war on the environment. And so far the evidence is that governments
think they can get away with it.
The Earth Summit
must be the place where these issues are decided. We cannot de-link
climate change from agriculture, nor from the mass movement of refugees
in search of land or water that can sustain them. We cannot ignore
the fact that developing countries are increasingly being used as
toxic dumps, nor the fact that they have legitimate aspirations
to fight poverty, provide food to their people as well as adequate
housing, clean air, clean water and clean sustainable energy.
The three pillars of sustainable development are
environment, economic development, and social equity. The question
facing the world is how we build a sustainable future that creates
economic development, while ensuring social equity and protecting
the planet on which we all depend.
Greenpeace distributed a checklist
of policy objectives for the Earth Summit to delegates in New York,
which, if implemented, would begin to address this war on the environment.
It includes governments and industry not only honouring the promises
made at Rio, but going beyond existing promises to address environmental
abuse and social inequity globally. Above all else, Greenpeace believes
that the summit must take positive measures to prevent dangerous
climate change that
will affect all countries, rich and poor.
Aside from ratifying the
Kyoto Protocol prior to the summit, governments must make substantial
commitments to develop along a clean, sustainable energy pathway.
Governments should:
- Commit to new public finance for renewables,
to bring clean, affordable, renewable energy to the 2 billion
people who currently live without electricity; and
- Be consistent. If they're committed to
sustainable development, they should stop funding non-sustainable
development. OECD countries in particular should immediately increase
renewables funding and support (via Export Credit Agencies, International
Financial Institutions and domestically), and all countries should
phase out subsidies to conventional energy sources, including
nuclear power, over the next 10 years, with a transition plan
to ensure that developing country economies are not damaged.
If governments fail to make these and other meaningful
commitments at the summit, backed up by funding and implementation
timetables, they will in essence have declared that the war on the
environment will continue for the long-haul.
Click
here to read more about the issues of importance at the 2002
Earth Summit in Johannesburg and Greenpeace's checklist for a successful
summit.
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