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right topics, wrong answers

trade agenda and greenwash to smother rio+10?

daniel mittler, foei wssd coordinator

The agenda for the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) is set. Governments have put together a challenging set of issues for Johannesburg focusing on globalization, poverty, unsustainable production and consumption patterns, resource efficiency, health and governance.

Sadly, the answers governments seem likely to give to this ambitious list are the wrong ones. So far, governments remain clearly unwilling to reign in neoliberal economic globalization. On the contrary, they seem hell-bent on making Johannesburg subservient to the free trade agenda pursued at the WTO.

The "chairman's paper" agreed at PrepCom 2, which will form the basis for negotiations in coming months, calls on WTO members to implement the results of the Doha WTO ministerial "so that world trade [can] support sustainable development in all countries". Hardly a convincing argument, considering the grave dangers the Doha agreements harbour for social and environmental standards!

environment must supersede trade
FoEI will continue to campaign for governments to agree upon clear social and ecological limits for economic globalization in Johannesburg. We will push to establish the principle that multilateral environmental agreements must always override trade rules.

If Johannesburg becomes merely "Doha 2", then the Summit will have to be rebaptized "Rio Minus 10". A key opportunity for society to regain power in the face of economic globalization will have been missed.

foei to stress ecological debt
FoEI has thus far not succeeded in making ecological debt an official Summit topic, although we will continue our efforts in the run-up to Johannesburg. We did however get the topic on government radar screens at the second PrepCom. India, for example, took up ecological debt in the plenary and acknowledged they did so due to our campaigning. There was also considerable press interest in the issue.

energy contentious
Energy is another key challenge to be addressed in Johannesburg, and thus far governments seem unwilling to take sufficient steps. Indeed, advanced fossil fuels are being offered as part of the solution rather than part of the problem in the chairman's paper. FoEI will oppose this and campaign for an ambitious renewable energy use target of at least 12 percent by 2010 for all industrialized countries.

questioning partnership agreements
At PrepCom 2, so-called "type 2" outcomes were a major topic of discussion. The idea is to include "partnership agreements" between some states and/or stakeholders as part of the official Summit outcome. Everyone can contribute their favourite project to implement sustainable development. These partnerships have the potential to allow for at least some progressive results at the Summit, as they cannot be blocked by the JUSCANZ (Japan, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) umbrella group and others.

But there are also two grave dangers associated with such partnerships. First, they have no clear criteria so far; in theory, for example, nuclear projects could count. Second, these partnerships could have a negative political effect; the "good news stories" they will generate could keep the press occupied and take pressure off governments to negotiate decent agreements ("type 1 outcomes").

high greenwash potential
The US, for example, was clearly already speculating that attractive "type 2" initiatives could be presented in order to help silence demands for progressive agreements. Furthermore, business will use type 2 outcomes to argue that there is no problem, that the solutions are all "out there" and that they happen to have them. Type 2 outcomes could thus result in major greenwash at the Summit.

The danger, then, would be that the message sent to the world is that all is well, and that FoEI and others stressing government failure to implement sustainable development are out of sync with the brave new world of beautiful technological solutions delivered in partnership.

clear position needed
FoEI has voiced these concerns, but we must establish a final position on type 2 outcomes in the coming months. We need to weigh the dangers of greenwash against the potential for positive type 2 agreements. What impact could progressive type 2 agreements have, especially as an inspiration for people worldwide?