GlobalisatiON (and on and on) in Johannesburg

national | miscellaneous | news report Thursday August 29, 2002 22:11 by Graham Caswell caswell at indigo dot ie

Issue # 4 of ECO Equity - the NGO Earth Summit newsletter

Issue # 4 of ECO Equity - the NGO newsletter published each day during the Earth Summit- reveals that after twelve hours of negotiations on Tuesday and Wednesday there had been more than 100 references to the Doha Declaration and the Monterrey Consensus and only two references to environment and sustainable development. Are these really trade talks?

Issue # 4 of ECO Equity - the NGO newsletter published each day during the Earth Summit- reveals that after twelve hours of negotiations on Tuesday and Wednesday there had been more than 100 references to the Doha Declaration and the Monterrey Consensus and only two references to environment and sustainable development. Are these really trade talks?

Other articles in today's ussue include;

-Rivers running into Oblivion (text referring to regional, sub-regional, and bilateral cooperation on trans-border rivers has been removed from the agreement. Why?

-Greenpeace International and the World Business Council on Sustainable Development have teamed up in an unlikely alliance to demand action on Climate Change.

-Lust for Large Dams (Uganda is reportedly seeking to include large-scale hydroelectric dams under the definition of renewable energy in the Implementation Text. But they are only renewable until they silt up and they're certainly not sustainable.)

-Potential renewables ample to meet legitimate demand (there's enough sustainable energy to go around if we're not greedy)

-Oceans Success at WSSD? There's been progress in protecting fisheries but the weasle term “if possible” isn't a hopeful sign.

-It’s Time the World Bank Lived Up to Its Obligations. The current WSSD text on trade and finance contains no language addressing the World Bank’s environmental performance even though the Bank’s new World Development Report 2003 predicts greater environmental catastrophes and social fallout if world leaders fail to take action in Johannesburg to curb
global environmental threats and unsustainable development patterns.

-G77: Don’t Sell Out Our Small Farmers and Fishermen - a plea by The Philippine Civil Society Counterpart Council for Sustainable Development

-The War on Drugs Is A War on People. Watch out for Article 38(o) which promotes even greater military intervention and uses war-like language to encourage increasing upheaveal in colombia and other developing countries so that western drug-users can be protected from themselves.

Eco-equity is published by Consumers International, the Danish 92 Group, Earthjustice, Friends of the Earth International,
Greenpeace, Northern Alliance for Sustainability, Oxfam International, and WWF.

The full eco-equity newsletter is available in PDF format on the Earth Summit Ireland website along with all issues released since the beginning of the summit.