NGO PRESS CONFERENCE ON WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

As the third session of the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit on Sustainable Development was coming to a close, the real question to all governments was "Whose side are you on?" Remi Parmentier of Greenpeace International told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

Were they on the side of those who truly wanted to enhance sustainable development and environmental protection or on the side of the United States, which had launched a deliberate campaign to destroy years of efforts to achieve sustainable development?, he continued.  Also participating in the discussion were Michael Strauss, Earth Media; Daniel Mittler, Friends of the Earth International; Solomzi Madikane, South African Civil Society Secretariat; Patricio Zambarano, Youth Representative from Ecuador. 

The vision of the United States, said Mr. Parmentier, was to run the planet like a "business park".  It had been actively seeking to delete any reference to the Kyoto Protocol in the negotiating text.  That was in contradiction to President George Bush's promise to European leaders last June that the United States would not stand in the way of nations which wanted to proceed with the Kyoto Protocol.  Therefore, he had either misled or deliberately lied to those leaders.

Also, he continued, the United States, along with Australia, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela -- and he was particularly concerned with Venezuela, which was acting more like an OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) country than as chair of the "Group of 77" -- were actively opposing any action to boost renewable energy as part of the outcome of the Summit. 

He also expressed concern about next week's meeting on the Convention on Biological Diversity, taking place in the Netherlands.  Although the United States was not a party to that Convention -- it would participate as an observer delegation -- it was bringing 80 people to the meeting.  "That was an awful lot of notetakers for an observer delegation", he remarked.  "It was almost one guy behind every delegation."  He was afraid that the United States was bringing such a large delegation to oppose the initiative by developing countries to address the issue of benefit sharing of genetic resources.

Mr. Mittler was also deeply concerned about the current state of the process, which had an unworkable text that was too long and contained too little that was worth being discussed.  He recalled that climate negotiations in November 2000 partly failed, because when governments arrived in The Hague they had a document that was too long, too complicated and contained too many brackets.  He worried that the same might happen in the run up to Johannesburg.  He called on governments to give the Chairman of the Preparatory Committee, Emil Salim (Indonesia), a clear mandate to "chuck out all the fluff" immediately and prepare workable texts that have meaningful targets and timetables with money attached.

There were clearly certain governments that were more to blame than others for the sorry state of affairs, he continued.  Over the last two weeks, he had

seen the United States as well as Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia and some other OPEC countries deliberately and persistently trying to wreck the planet and wreck the Summit.  He was also displeased that no one had dared to stand up to those countries.  The European Union, unlike in the climate negotiations, had acted in an unfocused manner and had not been able to give weight to progressive issues such as corporate accountability.  The "Group of 77" too, had often supported the OPEC line rather than the broader view of the Group.

Asked what the outlook was for Bali and beyond considering that so much was unresolved, Mr. Parmentier expressed hope for the fourth session of the Preparatory Committee, which would be held from 27 May - 7 June in Bali, where delegations would be represented at the ministerial level.  Ministers would have more muscle and would hopefully be able to stand up to countries like the United States.

It was absolutely necessary, added Mr. Mittler, for Committee Chairman Emil Salim to get a mandate to clean up the text before Bali.  The ministers could only show "guts" in Bali if there was a workable text, which showed where progressive governments, such as Norway and some "Group of 77" countries, could still take things forward.

Mr. Strauss said it was ironic that, precisely at the time when the world was trying to come together to make the world safer and had pulled itself behind a certain country when it needed support, there seemed to be an implicit agreement for multilateral cooperation, it was appearing that that agreement was only on the military level.  The Summit was the one venue in the world which had the mandate to address economic, social and environmental issues together and yet, it was the very process being sabotaged and undermined.

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