(2 of 4)
Ambassador Enrique Penalosa, head of the Colombian delegation, said the two- * year preparation period had brought the issues of sustainable development -- progress without destruction of the environment -- before hundreds of officials from developing countries, each of whom would impart those lessons back home. "Even if the conference had been an apparent failure on specific treaties, it would be a success," said Penalosa, "because for the first time we are alerting the planet that development is not necessarily good if it sacrifices future generations." Others took the line that the summit's battered compromise agreements represented first steps that could be built upon in the future -- just as the toothless 1985 Vienna Convention set the stage for later tougher agreements establishing timetables for the phaseout of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbon s.
Still others applauded the creation of a U.N. Sustainable Development Commission, modeled on the Human Rights Commission, which will use public criticism and pressure to hold governments to account for achieving the goals laid out in Rio. Whether the new commission becomes a real watchdog will be determined later this year when U.N. nations decide whether to make it a body composed of government ministers or of officials at the margins of influence.
Gus Speth, president of Washington's World Resources Institute, believes the summit could still produce his dream of a global bargain between rich and poor nations, but only if the meeting's treaties are developed during the next three years to spell out obligations, goals and monitoring. The price of failure for the world community could be a new cold war between the North and the South, warned U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.
If any clear message has come out of this meeting, it is that the 178 nations represented will all have to change if the agreements are to have any teeth. Statements from the poorer nations tended to place all blame for the earth's woes on the rich nations and assert that these polluters should pay the developing world to protect its ecosystems. Speth called this attitude a "prescription for long-term disaster since it will lead people to wait for money before they take actions that are in their own interest." Moreover, because of the billions of dollars in development assistance wasted through corruption and bad planning, the poorer nations are going to have to accept that donors and agencies will attach conditions to new spending.
For its part, the World Bank, positioned to be the primary distributor of funds to the developing nations, will have to do a better job of integrating environment and development in its investments. Some participants observed that the summit might have achieved more if it had lowered its sights and addressed the environmentally damaging consequences of present international assistance and domestic subsidies. World Bank initiatives like the Tropical Forestry Action Plan were billed as efforts to halt the destruction of rain forests, but in many cases the plan became an instrument of deforestation by fostering projects to open virgin forests to loggers. World Bank president Lewis Preston announced at the summit that the institution was willing to contribute $1.5 billion of its profits toward environment-related projects, but the bank still must show that it knows how to use these and other funds wisely.