WORLD'S PROBLEMS SOLVED: Summit negotiators reach deals on climate, trade

yahoo.com ^ | Sept. 1, 2002 - 10:37PM | ALEXANDRA ZAVIS, AP

[Cincinatus' Wife]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Bleary-eyed negotiators at the World Summit were upbeat after reaching deals on climate change and trade, and worked into the early hours today to hammer out the final details of an action plan before world leaders took the stage.

Delegates say they have now agreed on more than 95 percent of the 70-odd page plan for dealing with world poverty and protecting the environment. The head of the U.S. delegation, Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky, said she was "encouraged" by the progress made.

"The process is not just about approving text. It's about working with developing countries that look to us for concrete action," she said. "Failure is not an option."

The 10-day conference, which started last Monday, aims to agree on a plan to turn promises made at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio into reality.

Diplomats said one contentious issue was resolved late Saturday, when negotiators settled on wording to address the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, which the United States, under President Bush, has refused to sign.

The agreed text says nations that have ratified Kyoto "strongly urge" nations that have not done so to ratify it in "a timely manner."

"This is very encouraging," said Danish Environment Minister Hans Christian Schmidt, whose country holds the EU presidency.

Environmentalists also welcomed the wording, though they tempered their enthusiasm. Steve Sawyer, climate director for Greenpeace, called it "a tremendous achievement in this process because basically it doesn't go backward."

"It's about the only thing in this text that doesn't," he added.

Negotiators also reached compromises on trade that largely stick to language agreed to at a World Trade Organization meeting in Doha, Qatar. They include a reaffirmation of commitments to hold negotiations with a view to phasing out agriculture and other trade-distorting subsidies.

The last outstanding issue was resolved late Sunday when negotiators agreed to delete language giving the WTO precedence over multilateral environment agreements, diplomats said Sunday.

"There's a sense of euphoria among the delegates that they've been able to settle this very difficult issue," said Lucian Hudson, spokesman for the British delegation.

Negotiators also agreed to include wording emphasizing the need for good governance to achieve sustainable development, but did not make it a condition for receiving aid as advocated by the United States, diplomats said.

Negotiators meeting behind closed doors worked through the night to settle remaining differences over energy and sanitation.

"We have absolutely no choice. We must deliver," Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said.

Developing nations have sided with the United States against setting targets on renewable energy sources, while the European Union and other countries are pushing for a commitment to halve the number of people without access to sanitation by 2015.

Israel and Jordan announced a partnership of their own, the largest ever between the two countries, a $800 million pipeline intended to save the shrinking Dead Sea.

More than 100 world leaders were expected to address the summit in the final phase starting today.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Delegates wander aound some of the 6,000 statues made by deprived South African communities near the Sandton Convention Center which is hosting the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, Sunday Sept. 1, 2002. The display put on by Friends of the Earth has the small statues representing the voices of the people struggling to defend their lives, communities and environment and the six meter robot statue symbolizes the power of major corporations. The poster behind reads "Don't let big business rule."(AP Photos/Saurabh Das)

[Movemout]

The enviro shindig ended up being a bust. I weep at the world's loss.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The nonsense isn't over. Today the world's "leaders" show up to preen and pontificate.

[Caipirabob]

It's a 10 step plan. Here's some of the process:

1) Hold the United States accountable for everything that has ever gone wrong, even from when before the USA existed. Slavery, war, disease and that nasty shade of blue in the sky.

2) Blame wealthy and middle-class Americans for all of the evil and exploitation of the poverty striken around the world.

3) Sue the United States for every social issue that can be imagined or blackmail it into paying the cost to "relieve such ills" around the world.

4) Force the United States to promote policy which will degrade it's internal strengths and set their people against one another.

5) Support or promote via the Democratic Party initiatives which will further weaken the economy and sovereignty of the USA.

6) Dump the wretches of the 3rd world just outside of the border with directives to cross the border and collect on government subsidies.

So on and so on... feel free to contribute.

[yoe]

Eighteen months after is was adopted, the Kyoto Protocol has been signed by only 84 of the 176 nations that ratified the original Convention on Climate Change; only eight nations have ratified it. None of the eight nations that have ratified it are subject to its requirements.

Get the United States OUT of the United Nations...in the election year ASK those who are running just where they stand on the Kyoto issue and just where they stand on a continued membership in the United Nations. Why hasn't CHINA as MFN stepped forward?

[buffyt]

I heard that they agreed on power and water deals but that they couldn't have one without getting rid of the other. THey had to forget about sustainable power in order to have sustainable water or something like that. I think you do need a lot of power to keep clean water flowing....

[buffyt]

Get the UN out of the US and get the US out of the UN, AMEN!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical." --Thomas Jefferson

"It would take a revolution at the New York Times, the Washington Post and the TV networks to get them to tell their readers and viewers that they had deceived them about the dangers of DDT, global warming, nuclear power and the ozone hole.

They will never report that the evidence proves that Senator Joe McCarthy was right about the danger posed by the Communists who had infiltrated the government and other institutions. Nor will they report the evidence that proves that Harry Hopkins, Franklin D. Roosevelt's most influential adviser, was a Soviet agent.

No matter how forcefully they are confronted with the contrast between their intense coverage of the My Lai massacre by American troops and their sparse coverage of the Communist massacre at Hue of 10 times as many civilians will they concede that their coverage of the Vietnam War was slanted to favor the Communists.

The first draft of history that they write is riddled with major errors such as these, and it may be a hundred years or more before the media admit that they got a lot of it wrong." --Accuracy in Media -- Chairman Reed Irvine