The World After
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (wssd) is over. The best thing about it is that it could have been much worse. As I write this with regret and bitterness about the idealism of times gone by, I begin to feel my age.
I was not in Stockholm for the first world environment conference in 1972, but I heard about it from my colleague Anil Agarwal. This was before global warming appeared on the radar, so there was little talk about global cooperation, and the South was not clear why environment should be an important issue. The Brazilians still thought smoke was "the sign of progress" and Indira Gandhi called poverty "the greatest polluter". In spite of this lack of understanding, Anil used to say, there was concern and there was global leadership.
I was at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. By then the environmental movement had captured public imagination. The problems of biodiversity loss and the ozone hole were all too real. Negotiations on the climate change treaty had brought to the fore the critical need for nations to cooperate. Developing countries, though unwilling partners to begin with, realised that it was important to be part of the rule-setting process so that the differentiated responsibilities of countries were recognised. But most importantly, there was energy and vibrancy at Rio, born out of hope and idealism.
By the time Johannesburg has come around, idealism has become a dirty word. Negotiations have become a matter of business transactions and tired word play. If you say population, I say consumption. Although there were over 20,000 people at the summit, their voices were muted. This was partly by design - five different venues for civil society events meant energies were dissipated.
When we got to Johannesburg, the draft document to be negotiated
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