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Setbacks in Rio
While few people expected the Earth Summit to produce a miracle in the form of a package of Instant solutions to the world's environmental Froblems. no one was prepared to see the UN onference on Environment and Development (UNCED) face severe setbacks and move towards an uncertain end. True, a number of environment-related treaties have been signed and more may be approved before the meeting closes on June 14. However, experts have already started speculating on the size of the failure rather than on the extent of success. In fact, the mood in Rio has become a bitter one. marked by anger and disappointment among the developing countries as well as among many UN experts, and obstinacy and a kind of defensive insularlsm among some, but not all. industrialised nations.
There is really nothing new about the contentious and divisive issues which have come into the limelight in Rio. They had surfaced and become major issues at earlier preparatory conferences. Including at the one in Kuala Lumpur. At the Malaysian capital, delegates from the developing South, especially the country's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad, had rightly argued that the Third World was unable to put major constraints on its development process, for the sake of environmental protection, unless the North accepted its major responsibility in safeguarding the global ecology through a mechanism that is agreed on in Rio.
In this respect, the position of the North or. rather of the damage caused to human lives, plants and even forests on a global scale by the industrialised nations, mainly through their reckless use of the world's energy ana emission of carbon dioxide, is well-covered in documents produced by the United Nations, rather than by experts in Third World. These documents make the United States appear as the worst offender.
This is where the Rio Summit faces its most severe setback in the form of the refusal of Washington to go along with the consensus on the whole set of proposals, turning its back on a number of treaties especially on protection of forests which even other industrialised nations are ready to sign, on the ground that its acceptance of these agreements would hurt the US economy. Here, the position taken by the Bush Administration is so utterly insular — indeed, even selfish — that the US negotiator at the Summit, William K Reilly was obliged to write a confidential"memo to the White House, leaked to the press, requesting for a change in the US position.
What happens next or before the end of the Summit remains anybody's guess. The United States becomes the odd man out ", as it was at the UN Law of the Sea Conference in the seventies. However, putting Washington in isolation does not solve the world's problems, whether they relate to development or environment, if not both. However, what is most disturbing is that the Earth Summit will produce a new type of confrontation. between the North and the South, re-f(lacing the old East-West rivalry. In this con-rontation. the position taken by several Asian leaders, especially Dr Mahathir Mohammad, will be that we can no longer take up environment in isolation. Instead, we must face up to the whole range of issues, especially free trade, flow of investment and technology from the North to the South, and questions ofaid and debt, and try to get a fair deal for all. The Earth Summit may 'well prove once again that there are no short cuts to salvation of the mankind.