Rio+10
Some Thoughts on FoEI's Strategy on the
Way to South Africa
June 2002, ten years after Rio.
Thousands of NGO representatives,
politicians and experts are on their way to
South Africa to participate in the World
Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD).
What do they want to do there? Discuss
sustainable development? Participate in yet
another COP meeting, as the WSSD may be a
combined follow- up meeting for all of the
conventions that came out of the original
Earth Summit? Complain yet again about the
slow process and the still deteriorating
environment?
March 2001. It seems that we have
understood what sustainable development is
by now – or better, what it should be. We
really do not need to go to South Africa to
understand what needs to be done. We know
which political measures have to be taken,
we are aware of what changes in consumption
and production patterns are needed, and we
have seen the development of alternative
technologies over the years.
Sustainability Roadblocks
Still, we are not getting there.
Sustainable development is little more than
a vision. For many people and the
environment, the situation is worse today
than it was ten years ago. If the WSSD is
to make sense, it needs to answer the
question of
why
progress is so
painfully slow.
If the politicians coming to South Africa
are honest, they will have to admit that
economic globalization has decreased their
possibilities to eliminate poverty, to
introduce social standards, and to protect
the environment.
The threat of companies investing
elsewhere effectively prevents national
governments from introducing social or
environmental legislation. The
downward-spiralling competition to offer
the lowest taxes and best operating
conditions for companies has reduced
governments’ abilities to finance social
and environmental programmes. And while it
is becoming more difficult to carry out
sustainable policies on the national level,
no international structures exist to take
up the challenge.
All of this has been said many times
before. Still, politicians have not
addressed this impasse. The WSSD might be
the moment for us to confront heads of
state with the obstacles to sustainable
development. This would definitely be more
useful than more nice talk about
sustainability.
Failed Environmental Measures
For Europe and other industrialized
countries, a key challenge is the reduction
of resource use. One effective way to
tackle this problem is to introduce
ecological taxes – for example on energy.
For a while, environmentalists in Europe
were strong enough to fight for eco-taxes
on the national level. But economic
globalization and the resulting competition
between counties makes governments think
twice before introducing taxes on resource
use or pollution. At the same time, global
environmental taxes are unthinkable at the
moment. No institution exists where they
could be set up, let alone be effectively
enforced. Even within Europe, which has not
only a "common market" but also political
institutions, raising a European energy tax
has so far failed.
The November climate change negotiations
in The Hague gave us yet another example of
the imbalance between binding global trade
agreements and international environmental
agreements. While the WTO has an incredibly
effective built-in enforcement mechanism
(those who do not obey the rules are
excluded from global trade), environmental
agreements have no teeth and few
enforcement mechanisms. And even worse: by
threatening not to take part in
environmental treaties, countries can
expect a free ride on the backs of
participating countries. This was very well
exemplified by the US government, which
held everybody else hostage with its threat
not to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. With this
kind of behaviour, how can we expect to
achieve the necessary 80-90 percent CO
2
reduction in industrialized
countries within the next decades?
Getting Serious
The heads of state at the WSSD must be
forced to answer questions about how they
plan to reach meaningful global
environmental and social agreements with
the necessary enforcement mechanisms. They
need to address the global power structures
blocking the way, and set the necessary
framework for the global economy. As a
first step, they should ensure that
Multilateral Environmental Agreements can
not be overruled by the WTO. The increasing
and uncontrolled power of TNCs is another
obstacle that needs to be addressed. Making
TNCs legally accountable to citizens
everywhere in the world and establishing
rules for transparency are further first
steps that heads of state must agree upon
in South Africa.
World Environment
Organization?
The WSSD will see proposals to establish a
World Environment Organization (WEO) – some
propose a World Environment
and
Development Organization. There is a danger
that talking about a fancy new organization
will allow politicians to avoid the real
problems and convince everyone that they
have things under control. Still, we should
not dismiss the idea immediately. The
combination of all environmental
conventions or treaties under one roof
could have advantages. Australia, for
example, is interested in stopping ozone
depletion but obstinate when it comes to
dealing with climate change. Combining
different treaties might make trade-offs
possible. Also, a fund for environmental
measures (from general UN sources paid by
member countries) could be introduced that
would only be available to those countries
implementing the treaties, thus
establishing an incentive for ratification.
In the end, the establishment of a WEO must
be judged by how much it increases the
power of international environmental
agreements to be legally binding and
enforceable. If a WEO can not do that, it
is not worth the effort.
There are no doubt other good reasons to
go to the WSSD: The continuation of the
local Agenda 21 processes, the chance for
NGOs around the globe to unite, the raising
of issues such as ecological debt, the
following up of conventions, the addressing
of poverty issues. Still, I believe that
FoEI’s unique contribution could be to
focus attention on the obstacles to
sustainable development. This approach
would build on the successes of our trade
and international financial institutions
programmes, for example. In doing so, the
classical "triangle of sustainability" -
economics, environment and social issues –
will become a pyramid with a forth corner
called "global structures" or
"institutions". We will force ourselves and
others to look at the question of how power
structures make it possible or impossible
to reach sustainability.
I am looking forward to further
discussions on FoEI's strategy during the
run-up to the WSSD! It may be worth our
while after all to be among the thousands
of people following this global summit.
Martin Rocholl
, Director, FoE
Europe
Selling Water for Nothing
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Many countries in the Middle East
and North Africa produce oranges
which they export to Europe. The
production of oranges uses great
amounts of water which is scarce in
the region. These countries therefore
export one of their most precious and
overused resources to Europe: water
in the form of orange juice. In order
to change to other products or
production methods or at least to
make the consumer in Europe pay an
adequate price for the orange juice a
tax on the industrial use of water
should be raised. But of course this
is not done: any country levying a
water tax would immediately lose its
market in Europe since its oranges
would be more expensive. There exists
no structure no forum no mechanism
for the introduction of these taxes
on an international level and no
proposal for how to tackle the
problem in another way.
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The Paradox of Localization
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Many NGOs argue that the key
solution is to localize. Nobody
doubts that it makes sense to give
power back to people to decide about
their own futures. At the same time
it is global power structures and
global players such as TNCs that
endanger local communities. These
power structures can only be brought
under control on the international
level. Fighting for localization
therefore also means fighting for
some form of global governance that
sets up a framework for controlling
TNCs and other economic and political
powers.
Within Europe we are still
struggling with this paradox. Should
we make sure that the European Union
becomes the institution that sets
environmental and social standards
and is the democratically controlled
body for all Europeans or should we
fight the EU because it is mainly
driven by a neoliberal agenda and is
part of the globalization process?
Could the EU play a positive role in
establishing global rules for
controlling economic globalization or
is it part of the problem?
We will have to watch out that we
do not fall into a trap. Out of
justified scepticism towards more
powerful international structures we
are hesitant to strengthen them.
Meanwhile the nation-state is losing
the power to implement sustainable
policies and global economic players
are free to do as they please.
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