- JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -
Activists accused big business on Tuesday of hijacking the Earth Summit
from its goal of curbing poverty without damaging the planet.
-
- "The resources of Mother Earth are being sold off,"
said Anuradha Mittal of Indian group Food First on the second day of the
10-day talks in Johannesburg tackling issues from promoting clean energy
and preserving fish stocks to fighting AIDS .
-
- "The agenda has been taken over by the United States
and the European Union in trade liberalization," she said, as activists
complained about limited access to the main summit venue.
-
- Many other campaigners echoed charges that businesses
would get better deals than those on environmental protection at the summit,
a charge rejected by the main business lobby.
-
- "Business is happy to work with others to deliver
and make sure we address the environment issues and we look at the social
side," said Mark Moody-Stuart, former chief executive of Shell and
head of Business Action for Sustainable Development.
-
- BASD represents about 200 corporations in Johannesburg,
including automakers, chemicals groups and oil majors.
-
- The summit is expected to bless partnerships between
governments, companies and other groups to get together to solve problems
including access to clean water, energy or healthcare or to improve policies
on green agriculture or biodiversity.
-
- Many environmentalists are skeptical, saying the partnerships
could be a backdoor way for governments to shirk responsibility and give
big business opportunities to profit from expensive, privatized services
ranging from water supply to electricity.
-
- Delegates from poor nations at the summit, which focused
on environmentally friendly agriculture on Tuesday, say the United States
is leading resistance to their calls for more aid and new timetables to
meet goals of halving poverty and hunger by 2015.
-
- NO BLIND MARKET
-
- Poul Nielson, the European Union's Commissioner for Development
and Humanitarian Aid, denied that the 15 nations were pushing rampant capitalist
remedies: "The EU is not blindly accepting the market is the only
way to do things," he said.
-
- Inside, many delegates at the World Summit on Sustainable
Development blasted rich countries for giving about a billion dollars a
day in subsidies to their farmers -- six times aid handouts to poor states
totaling about $54 billion a year.
-
- "We're subsidizing farmers in the north to the tune
of $1 billion a day to preserve some very valid goals like a way of life,"
said University of California professor Pedro Sanchez.
-
- "Can we take a piece of this billion dollars a day
that European and North American farmers are getting...and put it toward
ending hunger and poverty in the developing world?" he asked to loud
applause in the plenary hall for negotiations.
-
- An end to farm subsidies in rich states would also enable
poor countries to export more products -- ranging from textiles to cocoa
-- and earn more foreign exchange to help development.
-
- But the United States recently increased agricultural
subsidies while the European Union is bitterly divided over French-led
resistance to cuts in its massive subsidy program.
-
- Noting World Bank figures calculating that giving them
more access to Western markets could benefit developing countries to the
tune of $150 billion a year -- almost treble what they get in aid -- British
Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett told delegates that London strongly
favored reform of EU subsidies.
-
- Members of non-governmental organizations accused organizers
of changing rules to restrict their access to the heavily guarded convention
center in Johannesburg, forcing them to queue while corporate delegates
swept past.
-
- Summit organizers denied tightening up access to the
plush, marble-floored conference center in Sandton, an area ringed by slums,
saying they were struggling to manage about 16,000 delegates for a building
that can take only about 7,000 people.
-
- "We have tried not to close the doors to anybody
who has a legitimate reason to be here," said Susan Markham, spokeswoman
for the organizers. NGO delegates had to get special tags, as well as passes,
to get in. Some grumbled that the neighboring mall was dominated by a huge
display for German BMW luxury cars.
-
- NOT HOT AIR?
-
- But summit Secretary General Nitin Desai rejected widespread
predictions that the meeting's draft 77-page conclusions will be mainly
hot air. "This conference will be different," he told South African
public radio. "The focus is very much on action."
-
- Desai said the summit had a better chance of success
than a landmark summit in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago because it was building
on U.N. agreements made in 2000 such as halving hunger and poverty by 2015.
Though not legally binding, the U.N. hopes governments feel obliged to
honor pledges made so publicly.
-
- More than 100 world leaders are due in Johannesburg for
next week's finale, hoping to sign up to a plan to revive the spirit of
Rio that led to projects to protect the planet from threats including global
warming and the spread of deserts.
-
- But criticisms of watered-down proposals and President
George Bush's absence has raised fears the summit could result in little
more than a rehash of the pledges made in recent years.
-
- South African newspapers, meanwhile, focused on a planned
crackdown by South African police on any demonstrations with one editorial
saying that the roughly 10,000 extra police drafted into one of Africa's
most crime-ridden cities should stay.
-
- "We need these police full time," the Citizen
said. "Our needs are not less than those of pampered VIPs." Police
have clamped down hard on small protests but organizers said they still
planned to go ahead with a big, banned march on Saturday.
-
- Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited
without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable
for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance
thereon.
|
