Air of pessimism envelops environment talks

By CATHERINE FIELD Herald correspondent

PARIS - As if squabbles over trade, farm subsidies and United States plans to attack Iraq were not enough, the troubled relationship between Europe and America is heading for further strain at this week's Earth Summit in Johannesburg.

Described as the biggest conference in world history, Johannesburg is likely to bring withering criticism of President George W. Bush's controversial approach to the environment.

Bush's dislike of any whiff of state regulation, his opposition to the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases, his belief that developing countries should shoulder a bigger part of the world's environment problems all caused difficulty at meetings to pave the way to the gathering, the 10-year follow-up to the Rio Summit.

Senior officials met behind closed doors this weekend ahead of the start, in the hope of saving the 10-day talks from producing expensive hot air.

The sprawling conference will gather as many as 40,000 participants from government, business and non-governmental organisations. Nearly 100 heads of state and government will take part in a summit in the last three days.

Unless, as his father did in 1992, he changes his mind at the last minute, Bush's representative at the summit will be Secretary of State Colin Powell. In between, the top US official will be an Under-Secretary of State, Paula Dobriansky.

She has been saddled with the thankless task of ensuring that the summit's "action plan" is stripped, so far as is possible, of any detailed commitments, such as a timetable or fund-raising goal for providing clean water, sanitation and electricity for the world's two billion poor.

She will seek to quash or dilute any references to government initiatives to fight pollution, on the lines of carbon taxes on fossil fuels. And she will also fight to erase any favourable mention of the still-crippled climate-change treaty.

That places her on a doctrinal collision course with the European Union.

Although the US can expect support in some areas from Australia, Canada and Japan, there is a big chance of a repeat of the bitter Kyoto showdown, says WWF campaigner Jennifer Morgan.

Unlike Rio, where a whole range of treaties were signed, no new convention will be unveiled in Johannesburg. Instead, the focus will be on implementation, rather than dreamy vision: the core is an "action plan" for carrying out the recommendations made in Rio, which have largely gathered dust, and on attacking poverty.

Agreement on the plan will be extremely difficult to reach, says a European negotiator in Brussels, warning that the biggest stumbling block by far is the US rather than the bloc of developing countries which are demanding concessions from rich nations.

The cost of the Bush snub to the Earth Summit may be measured in more than just a temporary diplomatic bashing and media drubbing.

It would have a big effect on public opinion in Europe, where there is already enormous hostility to Bush for curbing steel imports and boosting subsidies for American farmers. Such feelings could be reflected in a resounding rejection if Bush came around looking for allies in his expected war on Iraq.

In the run-up to Johannesburg, Maurice Strong, a Canadian who organised the 1992 Rio Summit, warned Washington about that kind of penalty.

Unilateralism carries "a cost in terms of the resentment and reluctance of others to cooperate on other issues of importance to the US", he told Congress.

Ill-feeling aside, a bigger question is whether the EU has the will to fill the policy vacuum left by the US.

In theory, it could use its diplomatic and economic strength to push through changes at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and at United Nations agencies - reforms that are in line with its belief in social solidarity and protecting the environment.

But European unity is a fragile thing, not least because of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's desire not to see Bush sidelined.

"This is as much a test of the EU as it is about America," says Kevin Watkins, senior policy adviser at Oxfam. "Is the EU capable of showing leadership?"

nzherald.co.nz/environment