NGO PRESS CONFERENCE ON STATUS OF COMMISSION ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT NEGOTIATIONS

NGO PRESS CONFERENCE ON STATUS OF COMMISSION

ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT NEGOTIATIONS

An overarching theme of the current meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development -- and what non-governmental organizations (NGOs) feared -- was an attempt to give emphasis to inappropriate capital- and technology-intensive tools for sustainable development, Michael Strauss, Media Coordinator for the NGO Steering Committee for the Commission on Sustainable Development, explained at a press conference at Headquarters today.

Much of the language of the draft outcome document of the Commission's ninth session was still in dispute, he continued, particularly in the sections on energy and transportation.

In the energy section, there was still no agreement on much of the text on market-based systems, on removing subsidies from fossil fuel technologies, and on whether and how quickly to mandate transfer to energy efficient and renewable technologies, he explained.

There was a significant deadlock and a battle brewing over the question of nuclear technologies.  The nuclear industry in certain countries had been pushing very hard in intergovernmental negotiations to have nuclear technologies classified at sustainable.  An attempt was being made to include language to that effect in the Commission's text, he explained.

The Commission's outcome document was just a text, he continued, but the matter would become more important at the forthcoming climate change negotiations. If this description of nuclear power was included in the Commission's final document, it would open the door for subsidies or credits to be given for nuclear power plants to be built both in the North, and in the South.

The attempt to classify nuclear power as sustainable was being undertaken by the representatives of Canada, United States, France and the United Kingdom (to a lesser extent, given their membership of the European Union), and India and Pakistan, he said.  Its opponents were the European Union as a whole, the small island developing States, the Nordic States, New Zealand and Poland.

Richard Sherman, of the NGO Earthlife Africa, said that the opposition of the small island States was significant.  These were the very States that were most threatened by climate change – indeed, some might disappear if sea levels continued to rise -- but, perhaps as a consequence of the experience of small islands of the South Pacific with nuclear testing, they were strongly opposed to the use of nuclear energy provision as an option.

In the transport sections of the draft, there was strong support from the European Union for the positions held by transport NGOs on matters like the polluter-pays principle, and the internalization of the external costs of transport, Walter Hook, of the NGO Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, said.  These had been previously accepted by the international community in the outcome document from the United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development (UNCED), Agenda 21.  However, right now, the “Group of 77” developing countries and China were rejecting even these previously accepted principles.

He believed the European Union was enormously frustrated because it could not even get the Group of 77 to agree on indicators that would oblige governments to show what progress they had made towards implementation of Agenda 21.  The Union believed that if no progress could even be made on indicators, the whole Commission process had been compromised.

The United States had been fairly quiet on transport issues.  All its representatives had been doing formally was ensuring that any mention of the Kyoto Protocol to the Climate Change Convention was removed.

Non-governmental organizations were also concerned about emphasis being placed on the use of transportation fuelled by hydrogen-cell technology, Mr. Hook explained.  This technology was not sustainable in developing countries, as it was very expensive, the infrastructure for its maintenance did not exist locally nor did the means to generate hydrogen fuel.  Emphasis on hydrogen-cell technology meant that resources that should be directed to more appropriate sustainable means of improving transport in the developing world, for example pedestrian and bicycle infrastructures, were being directed to supporting what was, in effect, high-tech research by the automobile industry.

Despite sustainable transport being a key topic of the Commission's discussions at this session, two key areas of concern of transport NGOs had not been addressed, Mr. Hook continued.  They were the complete lack of pollution controls on aviation, and the absence of aviation fuel taxes.  The Union would, he believed, to some extent, support a global tax on aviation fuel to support sustainable development.  The United States opposed that.

There were some areas of agreement among Commission members, he said.  These included that there should be no new institutions arising from the Commission's deliberations, and there would be no new funding arrangements.

Fatma Denton, representing the NGO Women's Caucus and Energia Network for the Commission for Sustainable Development, said that her group had come to the Commission to ensure that the gender perspective did not get lost in its deliberations.  The Caucus had succeeded in this aim, and in particular discussions on rural energy and accessibility had acknowledged the need to focus attention on women's needs.  However, she too, was concerned that the Commission process seemed to have been hijacked by the nuclear issue.  For developing countries, this was not the important issue.

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