JOHANNESBURG, 3 September — The United States was isolated and under pressure yesterday at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, where several leaders pointed to its profligate use of the world’s resources and called on Washington ratify a global-warming pact. President George W. Bush is snubbing the summit, which has drawn about 100 heads of state and government, and Secretary of State Colin Powell was not due to arrive until Tuesday.
The strongest words on the United States in the first session of the top-level three-day debate came from President Jacques Chirac of France, whose country has repeatedly been at political odds with the United States. Chirac painted a picture of a world where all five continents were in crisis, plagued by environmental, social or economic problems.
In the case of the United States, “the American economy, with its often-ravenous appetite for natural resources, seems to be hit by a crisis of confidence in the way it is managed,” he said. “(...) Humanity is suffering, it is suffering from poor development, in both the North and the South, and we stand indifferent. The Earth and humankind are in danger are we are all responsible. It is time to open our eyes.”
Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and British Prime Minister Tony Blair made emphatic references to the looming peril of climate change and indirectly appealed to Washington to ratify the Kyoto Protocol — the UN accord on cutting heat-trapping fossil-fuel pollution.
And Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien declared that his country’s Parliament would vote on ratification by the end of the year. In one of his first acts after taking office, Bush declared in March 2001 that he would not put Kyoto to the Senate for ratification. He contended that it was too costly for the US economy and unfair because it did not commit fast-growing high-population countries such as Indian and China to join industrialized countries in cutting their pollution.
Ministers at the summit rushing to agree an action plan on poverty and the environment were deadlocked over whether the world needs a target to boost “green” energy, diplomats said.
With world leaders already addressing the summit in a grand conference hall, some of their ministers were under intense pressure in a small room nearby to bridge their differences.
Ministers talked into the early hours of yesterday, but failed to settle the matter. “There’s room for compromise, but how long it will take, who knows?” said one delegate who returned to the talks mid-morning after a few hours sleep. (The Independent)
