EARTH SUMMIT
by J. A. Savage & J. M. Majot
World leaders getting together to take environmental issues as seriously
as armies and limos and mistresses? Sure. . . . . Still, the biggest environmental
extravaganza on earth illogically beckoned us, like a glittering UFO in
the desert. The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro promised a chance to watch
heads of 170-odd governments-from murderous dictatorial to simply dictatorial-slice
up global resources like so much yielding custard pie. Yet, the Summit also
seduced us with tens of thousands of environmentalists from the most remote
and devastated parts of the world.
This UN conference was particularly ugly. Its principle agenda had been
determined by northern industrialized countries, though its subject-matter
revolved on southern developing countries. The northerners had pretty much
gutted anything that would affect northern consumption patterns. U.S. President
Bush wrung concessions from the rest of the planet so Americans could continue
driving inefficient autos, piling on useless appliances, and undermining
alternative energy research and development. The rest of the world could
shoulder responsibility for global warming. His scary Council on Competitiveness,
a standing committee tutored by Vice-President Dan Quayl and packed with
CEOs, weakened the biodiversity treaty on behalf of a few small companies
experimenting with products like the Flavr Savr tomato-trying to put the
taste back in supermarket tomatoes via genetic engineering.
Kenya's Daniel Arap Moi, fresh from jailing and beating environmentalists
back home could compare notes with Mahathir Bin Mohamad, fresh from jailing
and beating environmentalists in Malaysia. Brazil's Fernando Collor de Mello
could nod in approval and awe, taking time out from desperately trying to
raise money to turn the Amazon into a network of massive dams. The ever-present
and ever-calm World Bank could ever so neatly and arrogantly convince the
world that it was the bank through which billions of greenbacks should pass
on their way to ever so green projects in the Third World. Five hundred
years ago, an estimated five million indigenous people in 900 nations lived
and maintained distinct cultures in Brazil. Today 180 nations of 200,000
people are all that's left. If the outdated and undemocratic system of development
continues here, chances are that those 200,000 will not survive. Lack of
land rights and water, little or no political representation, and the forced
resettlement and cultural devastations wrought by large scale industrial
development are wiping out communities and entire cultures. The large dams
built to fuel the smelters and feed the factories with electricity are among
the worst bloodsuck feeders of destruction. With plans for 165 new dams
by 2010, Brazil could become one of the biggest hydroelectricity producing
nations in the world. Millions of people will be forcefully uprooted from
their homes and livelihoods, waterborne disease will increase significantly,
thousands of hectares of pristine rainforest will be drowned, and the poor
will reap none of the benefits. As environmental refugees, they will be
forced to live in slum conditions of government resettlement camps.
The ever-present and eminently quotable Vandana Shiva, an Indian activist,
and her Third World sisters are livid at Jacques Cousteau, defender of oceans,
who said early in the proceedings that uncontrolled population growth is
the number one environmental problem. "It has been shown again and
again and again that it is not the numbers of poor causing resource degradation.
They talk about carrying capacity. I think it's a false question. There
is no uniform way that population distributes itself. The perpetrators realize
they cannot maintain privilege if everyone is equal." In her not-quite-Marxist
analysis, she calls for a return to community which controls, consumes and
regenerates its own resources instead of a community of wage laborers as
the supreme method of population control.
There were plenty of disingenuous "environmentalists." Business
interests in MBA-quality ecowrap have slithered into the Global Forum and,
less surprisingly, the UN summit too. Like environmental organizations,
they are officially registered as Non-Governmental Organizations. They have
photos of cuddly mammals, stacks of glossy handouts and hired public relations
staffers. Some try to hide their true interests in acronyms and green-sounded
names, like the INEM (International Network for Environmental Management)
which has members such as Dow Chemical and Daimler-Benz. INEM has a cloudy
scenario, officially "helping business cope with environmental issues,
fostering the exchange of information and technology in the field of environmental
management and sustainable development." But they're trying to head
off government regulations by taking on self-regulation, or writing their
own laws. "We're tired of being beaten over the head by environmentalists,"
Horst Wagner, president of the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg tells me.
The World Bank, however, doesn't even bother to dream up a new acronym.
Despised by many environmental organizations for its role in funding logging,
paving and damming projects, in turn displacing residents, creating hostile
environmental conditions such as fish kills and insect storms, and funneling
scarce money from poor countries to already rich ones, the World Bank rented
a booth smack in the midst of the Global Forum.
In the chilled room, with rows of government leaders in dark suits, government
leaders' chests covered with ribbons, government leaders in an occasional
flowing robe, I listen to prepared speeches, roughly translated through
my headset as bla bla bla. We want to save the environment bla bla bla We
want the G7 to give us money for project bla bla bla We don't want anyone
else telling us what to do with our trees bla bla bla. It doesn't take long
to understand that the real work of inserting and deleting brackets and
paragraphs into the final treaties is going on elsewhere, where no journalist
can record.
The international Chamber of Commerce, which rabidly fights environmental
regulation unless it is voluntary, is trying to paint itself green but is
easily transparent. Around the corner from the international chamber lurks
a business organization tightly wound with layers of green and tough to
see through-the Business Council for Sustainable Development, chaired by
Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidhiny (Nestle, Swatch, Asea Brown Bovar,
etc.) with members, such as Volkswagen, Ciby-Geigy, Nissan Motor, DuPont,
and Shell. Business interests were doing well because they felt at home.
The Earth Summit was much less about saving the earth as it was a high stakes
crap game, the outcome of which would help determine who got what, and for
how much.
The players did not, of course, approach the table with equal footing. The
northern developing countries had, for the most part, set the agenda, so
they were well ahead of the game before it started-at least officially.
The G-77 (the name given to the group of developing countries) however,
entered the room with more leverage as a group than ever before. If the
environment is going to be a trading chip, their store of chips is pretty
impressive: rainforest, minerals, all those billions of unidentified biological
resources. Armed with a good portion of the planet's resources, the G-77
governments had a pretty straightforward line: Whaddaya gonna give us for
it? In their minds, the north better come up with some serious money. Something
along the line of $125 billion a year-the figure which appears on the bottom
line of Agenda 21, an 800-page UN blueprint to save the planet. What I am
hearing at the official summit pisses me off.
"Environmental" Democratic Vice-President wannabe Al Gore stands,
his personal camera crews at the read, along with the international press
corps. "Are you a member of the same political party as President Bush?"
is one of the early questions, which visibly humbles the overly confident
and typically ethnocentric Senator Gore. As he presents his personal review
of President Bush's speech ("He delivered it well. The U.S. should
take a leadership role"), Gore metamorphosed into the candidate that
he is, pulling something good to say about the U.S. out of the abyss. "I'll
tell you one thing," he assures the crowd. "The U.S. should be
getting a lot more credit than it has for pressuring the World Bank to see
to it that the GEF [Global Environment Facility, administered by the World
Bank] is more democratic, accountable, and transparent." My heart falls
to my shoes. Not Senator Gore. Not the one who is supposed to be so good
on the environment. Not the guy who may be vice-president. Wait. Maybe he
knows something.
Out the door ahead of him, I position myself behind the corner of an aluminum
trailer . . . Three minutes later, the shuffle of wing tip shoes cues me
and I appear in front of his face. "Senator, about that extra credit
due to the U.S. for pressuring the World Bank, is there anything, anything
at all that is leading you to believe that this pressure being applied by
the U. S. is going to amount to anything?" Without a pause, in that
"someday I'm gonna reach the top" Al Gore style, his answer shoots
back. "World Bank president Lewis Preston says he's gonna change that,
and I believe him." That's it. Gore believes in democracy and accountability
and transparency, and he believes that World Bank President Preston, formerly
president of blue chip bank J.P. Morgan, is going to see to it that one
of the most secretive and protected institutions in the world believes in
it too.
I click off the tape and watch his entourage round the corner, headed for
the door and the vice presidency. With my heart firmly embedded in my toes
now, I head back to the real, cynical world of Berkeley, California.