World Summit on Sustainable Development Analysis

Worldwatch Live Online Discussion

Hilary French: Director of the Global Governance Project and Senior Researcher

September 13, 2002 - 12:00pm EDT

We are very happy this week to talk with Hilary French, Director of the Global Governance Project, about her analysis of the recently concluded World Summit on Development and discuss her experiences at the Summit meeting, and evaluate the Summit's policy recommendations.

Dick Bell, Worldwatch: Welcome to today's chat with Hilary French, director of Worldewatch's Global Governance Project. Hilary is just back from the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, and can answer your questions about what was and wasn't accomplished at the Summit.

Hilary French: Thanks, Dick. I'm pleased to be participating in this chat.

Rockville, MD: Hilary -- What's your take on the result of the so-called Type 2 agreements -- there were many "partnerships" announced in Jo-burg, but not all were offered up as Type 2's. Is that your understanding as well. Thanks! IRA

Hilary French:
One of things that was new about this particular Summit was the inclusion "Type 2" agreements as part of the official outcome of the Summit. For the uninitiated, these are parternship agreements that involve multiple players, including often national governments, international institutions, businesses, and non-governmental organizations. In the past, U.N. conferences have produced agreements for governments to partake in, rather than broader partnerships announced as part of the official outcome of the Summit. It remains to be seen what the various partnerships announced at the Summit will add up to over time, but I do think we have to recognize that this was a rather innovative attempt by the U.N. to do things differently than in the past at U.N. conferences. There is a list of these "Type 2" outcomes posted on the U.N.'s website, but as you point out, there were lots of other partnerships and initiatives that grew out of the Summit that are not necessarily included on the U.N.'s list.

Allentown, PA: Hello Hilary, It seemed there were housands of environmentalists at the WSSD kicking and screaming their way (figuratively)into wherever they could be seen and heard. In the end, their voices did not carry well to the delegates and carried even less to the media and to the general public for whom they were speaking. To what extent did the protestors come organized- prepared to best use the full wieght of their numbers to focus attention on consensus themes? Were there any themes they sang in chorus (remember "We Shall Overcome")? I watched pretty closely and didn't see evidence of effective use of large group dynamics to gain media and delegate attention. What did you observe? How much room was there for improvement in this area? Dan Poresky dan@agshen.org www.agshen.org P.S. Thank you for the good work you are doing at Worldwatch. I met you last October at Brandeis where you and others from WW spoke.

Hilary French: The presence of NGOs in Johannesburg was a bit different than the protests we have seen in recent years at events like the WTO meeting in Seattle, or the Genoa G8 Summit. There was less emphasis on protesting from the streets, or more emphasis on participating in the various events associated with the Summit, and trying to influence the official negotiations. That being said, there were some protests, mainly during the week-end in the middle of the Summit. As you've indicated, the groups protesting had somewhat disparate agendas, but all of them wanted to get the point across that there were some voices being left out of the official deliberations. There was also alot of frustration being expressed by NGOs about the watering down of the official documents that was taking place in the negotiating halls.

Bangor, ME: I was confused about what was happened about global warming. Did the Summit reach an agreement about Kyoto?

Hilary French: One of the highpoints of the Summit, in my view, was the announcement by Russia that they plan to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which put us over the top, meaning that enough countries have now either ratified Kyoto or announced plans to shortly for it to cross the threshhold required for it to enter into legal force shortly. Of course, one of the notable things about this is that the rest of the world has clearly decided to move ahead with the Kyoto Protocol, despite the Bush Administration's decision to pull the U.S. out of it. I don't think the Bush administration really expected this to happen--they thought that if the U.S. pulled out the whole thing would collapse. I'm encouraged that the rest of the world has decided to move ahead nonetheless with the Protocol, and hope that the U.S. will eventually decide to come into the fold.

Boise, ID: Why were people so disrespectful to Secretary of State Powell? He's always seemed like a good man to me, and I didn't like people booing him.

Hilary French: I share your views that the booing part was unfortunate. But I think that it was a reflection of the extreme frustration present at the Summit with what were perceived as persistent efforts to frustrate meaningful commitments there. Also, President Bush's decision not to attend the Summit sent a very strong signal that the U.S. government did not put a high priority on issues of environmental protection and sustainable development. During the time of the Summit, the newspapers were full of headlines about the effort to build international support for a war on Iraq. The rest of the world is strongly resentful of the fact that the U.S. seems to put a lot of emphasis on trying to marshall support to fight wars (although stating it will go ahead on its own if necessary), but seems not to show anywhere near the same commitment to participating in international efforts to address issues of human and environmental security. With so many people suffering around the world from persistent poverty and environmental problems such as lack of access to clean water, dirty air, and increased catastrophic weather events that may be linked to climate change, it is hard for people to understand why the United States seems to be so reluctant to engage these issues seriously.

Los Gatos, CA: There has been next to nothing in the press regarding the Jo-burg Summit, that I have seen. When might we get a summary overview of what transpired?

Hilary French: It is true that the U.S. press did not cover the Summit as extensively as many of us had hoped for. This stands rather in contrast to the way the Summit was covered in much of the rest of the world, where it did get quite prominent coverage. The Economist magazine, for instance, put the Summit on its cover the week before last. One of the reasons for the divergence in coverage was President Bush's decision not to attend. When the president travels somewhere, the White House press corps generally follows him, which always results in high profile coverage. Re good sources for a summary overview of what transpired, there are various newsletters available over the web that report on what came out of the Summit. Earth Negotiations Bulletin is one. The U.N. summit website has the official documents that emerged from the Summit up on its website now--www.johannesburgsummit.org. As for analyses of what the Summit added up to, I expect we will see some good pieces emerging, but it may take some time to have the perspective necessary to come to definitive conclusions. Stay tuned to Worldwatch, for one, as we will continue to be following the aftermath of the Summit, and trying to shed some light on what it all means.

Vancouver, BC: By having Kyoto come into legal force, does this mean that other countries like Canada will be forced to comply?

Hilary French: Only countries that ratify the Kyoto Protocol are legally bound by it. So the United States, for instance, is not bound by it until it is ratified. I believe that the Canadian governments has said that it plans to ratify at this point, although they have been late to come to that decision.

Bayside NY: Is there any teeth to what was passed? Anything Binding on any government?

Hilary French: There is not much teeth to what was passed, unfortunately, as the agreements adopted at Johannesburg were not legally-binding treaties. In the final analysis, they depend on the goodwill of governments and other actors to actually implement them. One role that non-governmental organizations can play is to continue to monitor the action of governments to try to hold them to account for commitments made at J'Burg and in other forums and venues. The U.N. can also play a role in this ongoing monitoring, not only of commitments made by governments, but also of the implementation of the various partnership agreements announced in Johannesburg.

Chennai, India: Hai Hilary.2015 has been set as the targeet date for both replenishing fishing grounds and halving the number of people lacking clean water and sanitation. Don't you think that given the increasing population that by 2015 the pressure on fish resources and clean water would have increased and these targets cannot really be met?

Hilary French:
You raise a good point. It is positivie that the Summit did at the end of the day include some targets, such as those that you mention above, as those give us some benchmarks against which to measure progress or lack thereof in the years ahead. But we also have to look at some of the underlying forces that may make it difficult to achieve these targets, and population growth is certainly one of them. In this regard, it is important to continue to hold governments accountable for pledges they made at the Cairo conference on Population and Development in 1993 to step up investment in family planning, reproductive health care, and other kinds of programs that can improve the health and welfare of women and their children, and will also stabilize population growth rates. Unfortunately, many northern governments have not lived up to their Cairo promised,particularly regarded increased financial support for these kinds of programs and initiatives.

Hartford, CT: What did the Summit do about water? I don't think we're paying enough atention to water problems.

Hilary French: Water was the focus of a lot of discussion at Johanessburg. It was recognized as one of five priority areas for the Summit--the others being energy, health, agriculture, and biological diversity. A number of donor countries announced partnership initiatives aimed at helping to meet the U.N.'s millennium development goals of reducing by half the number of people lacking access to safe drinking water by 2015. It will be important to keep an eye on the implementation of these initiatives, to see if they materialize as promise and deliver the needed results.

St. Paul, MN: In Vanishing Borders, you state that "the time is now ripe to build the international governance structures needed to insure that the world economy of the 21st century meets peoples' aspirations... without..destroying the natural fabric that underpins life itself. I am wondering how you would view the summit in terms of that goal.

Hilary French: I'm glad to know that some of the points made in Vanishing Borders are getting through to people. But I'm not sure they are getting through sufficiently to governments! There was a lot of discussion of international environmental governance in Johannesburg, as well as of related issues of sustainable development governance, but at the end of the day no major innovations related to governance took place. There is language in the Plan of Implementation that emerged from the Summit that calls for a strengthened role for the U.N. Environment Programme and for the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. There is also a somewhat expanded role envisioned for the Global Environment Facility. There is the hope that the Summit will bring renewed commitment and support for the role of these institutions, but it remains to be seen if we will see much of a departure from business as usual.

Finland: How would you compare Johannesburg summit to the Rio summit 1992? Was Rio a bigger success than Johannesburg? What was achived after Rio that can be said is better now?

Hilary French: It's fair to say that Rio made a bigger splash than Johannesburg, particularly here in the U.S. Then-President Bush attended Rio, of course, unlike his son, although reluctantly. That meant that the major media outlets attended Rio as well, and controversies about the U.S. role there became major media stories. Things were far more muted this time around. Nonetheless, in both cases (Rio and J'Burg), the Summits had the effect of putting the issues of sustainable development onto the political radar screen. When events like this happen, the public becomes more curious and educated about what their government is doing about particular issues. And governments come under pressure to try to deliver something. Since Rio, we've begun to see much more attention to sustainable development issue at the state and local levels. This can be seen in the thousands of urban Agenda 21 initiatives that exist around the world. And the business community has begun to adopt the concept as part of the environment in which it operates. In some cases, this has led to real changes. In other cases, not. But both governments and the business community clearly face pressures as a result of events like J'Burg to show some positive initiatives, and NGOs can try to use the occasions to hold them both accountable for their promises.

Ann Arbor: Hilary -- Some of us sense that what went on was just "singing to the choir". How much of the conference was simply self-eduction of by and for the community and how much emerged as really new and useful ways to address global environmental change?

Hilary French: Well, it is of course extremely important that we move beyond "singing to the choir." There was some of that happening in J'Burg, of course, but it is worth recognizing that just getting the choir together occasionally can help to produce a more harmonious melody. Johannesburg was, if nothing else, a powerful gathering of people committed to sustainability from diverse walks of life and diverse corners of the planet. It is powerful to feel and understand that one is part of a global movement. Connections forged between citizens of diverse countries, indeed ones that are often enmeshed in political disputes with one other, can be valuable. The sense of common purpose is important, I'd argue. But I do feel that these events are about more than preaching to the choir, because of the broader audience one reaches, especially through the media presence. There is an opportunity to reach out to a broader group than normally pays attention to these issues, and that is an opportunity worth grabbing.

Richmond, VA: What was the most significant thing that happened at the Summit?

Hilary French: The decision by the rest of the world to move ahead with the Kyoto Protocol without the participation of the United States was one of the most significant things that happened at the Summit. Ten years after the U.N. climate change treaty was forged at Rio, it was very important that (most of) the world commit itself to seeing this process through. Less specifically, but also importantly, there was a recommitment to the concept of sustainable development at Johannesburg on the part of countries of both the North and the South. There was a deeper understanding in Johannesburg than in Rio of ways in which the environmental and poverty agendas are inter-related. The focus on what are called the WEHAB areas--water, energy, health, agriculture, and biodiversity--was a useful contribution, as it made clear that these five sectors are key for achieving sustainable development in a broad sense--for meeting pressing human needs, but in a way that recognizes that healthy ecosystems are inexricably linked with healthy people.

Louisville, KY: What was the aim of the six(?) members of the U.S. Congress who attended the conference, outside of the "official" delegation? Who were they? Is there any chance of a Congressional hearing dealing with WSSF issues?

Hilary French: It was important to have the Congressional delegation present in J'burg, as they provided an important countervoice in many cases to what the administration was saying. It was important for the international community to know that the U.S. is not a monolith--that the positions of the current Bush administration do not necessarily represent the positions of many people and their democratically-elected respresentatives. I believe there have already been some Congressional hearing on WSSD-related issues. There was a resolution passed prior to the Summit that expressed displeasure with several elements of the official U.S. position. But, as you suggest, it would be very helpful for this oversight to continue in the post-Summit period as well. We need to make sure that Johannesburg doesn't just come and go, and that we move on to the next conference or event. The key thing now is to come up with strategies for building on some of the advances that were made at the Summit, and ensuuring that processes are developed that can institutionalize global attention to the environment and sustainable development on an ongoing basis in a way that delivers results.

Dick Bell, Worldwatch Institute: Hilary, thanks so much for being with us today. Please come back and visit with us on Friday, October 11, at 12:00 PM EDT, when we will be talking with Brian Halweil about his research on the dramatic growth in organic agriculture around the world.

Hilary French: Thank you, Dick, and thanks to all who submitted such interesting and thoughtful questions. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to answer all of them.