With its aim of pulling together ideas on climate change agreed in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, on global trade agreed at the WTO meeting in Doha, and on how to end poverty and starvation, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg is now in its final phase with the attendance of most world leaders. Most came with constructive ideas; the proposal by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair that the industrialized world open its markets to developing countries, particularly in agriculture, is remarkable for its altruism. A few, like Presidents Robert Mugabe and Sam Njoma came to attack others. That contributes nothing to the quest for sustainable development. Some did not come at all, like US President George Bush. The excuse is that, with plans to topple Saddam Hussein, he did not have the time. The truth is somewhat different. Bush is about as environmentally friendly as an oil slick. Among his more prominent anti-environmentalist moves, he spurned the Kyoto accord, lifted environmental restraints in Alaska on oil exploitation, and logging restricitons. Such actions have resulted in him being accused — as much in the US as elsewhere — of caring only about the interests of big business.
If that is so, then it is all the more remarkable that he is not in Johannesburg: big business is certainly there. The sight of UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan addressing a session accompanied by the head of megacorporations like Toyota, Shell and Rio Tinto is perhaps among the most remarkable aspects of this summit. All too predictably, their presence has raised the hackles of some protesting groups, whose opposition to the presence of big business at the summit is ludicrous. If there is to be action on climate change, on poverty, world trade and various other issues that are part of the challenge of sustainable development, then big business has to be involved. It is crass ignorance to imagine that changes can be made without them, simply by diktat from politicians. That idea was at the heart of communism, and it was the rock on which it foundered.
Many may imagine that this summit will likewise sink without trace, that the bitterly contested statement that will be produced tomorrow and which is supposed to set the environmental agenda for the next 10 years will soon be languishing at the bottom of filing cabinets the world over. True, it will not be a strong statement; that much we know already. Nor will it be a binding agreement. But no one should imagine that this summit is nothing more than a publicity circus. Many of the issues being discussed in Johannesburg — cleaner forms of energy, richer nations opening their markets to poorer ones, greater sharing of technology and science to help the developing world overcome poverty and disease — will happen, whatever is put on paper. If no one else, the EU, the world’s largest economic entity, will see to it.
That may have serious implications the countries still dependent on oil. Whatever resistance there might be from Washington and elsewhere to switching to renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, it is going to happen. Once alternative energy technology is in widespread production, many developing countries will join the bandwagon because it will be cheaper than oil. That is what the oil producers face, and sooner than many may think.
