Rulers' ten years of broken promises

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday August 22, 2002 13:48 by Sean Bhean Bhocht - IST

Socialist thoughts on Earth Summit

THE EARTH Summit starts in Johannesburg, South Africa, next week. World leaders will talk about tackling poverty, dealing with the environmental crisis and embracing "sustainable development". US president George W Bush is hostile even to making such noises. This could lead some people to think that the summit must contain something good.

The truth is that the gathering is dominated by those responsible for the awful state of the world. The plans they will push in Johannesburg will make things worse, not better. Ten years ago world leaders gathered for the first Earth Summit, in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. They pledged action on poverty and the environment.

A key promise was that richer countries would massively step up aid to the poorest countries. Every one of the rich countries at Rio vowed to at least double its aid budget, to 0.7 percent of economic output. Since then aid has been cut. It is down to a miserable 0.22 percent of economic output across the rich countries.

In Rio governments also pledged to cut the debt burden on the world's poorest countries. Instead it has soared by a third to £1.7 trillion, and now kills 19,000 children every day. Tackling the threat of climate change and global warming was another key pledge at Rio.

Leaders said they would cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the main gas responsible for climate change. But between 1990 and 2000 global carbon dioxide emissions grew by a staggering 9.1 percent a year. That madness means we will see more of the extreme weather that has been seen recently.

These catastrophes have been accelerated by the policies of the giant corporations, governments and institutions such as the IMF, World Bank and WTO. They argue that nothing should stand in the way of global capitalism. Yet it is this system that lies behind growing poverty and the threat of environmental disaster.

In Johannesburg they are offering more of the same. Gone is even the pretence that global regulation of the system is the answer. It is in building the movements-against capitalism, its poverty, environmental catastrophes, and its wars-that the hope for a future for the world and its people lies.