Earth Summit 2002 - Greenpeace

Monterrey, Mexico 21, March 2002: As the world's leaders gathered today in Monterrey for the final days of the UN International Conference on Financing for Development it is clear that after three days of negotiations there is little to help billions of poor people around the world and the environment.

"This conference which was meant to provide real financial help to millions of poor, has been hijacked by an industry agenda with input from Non Governmental Oganisations (NGOs) kept, at best, to a minimum, and at worst, they have been excluded from the discussions.

Decisions that will affect billions of people around the world and the environment have been made behind closed doors" said Greenpeace campaigner, Paul Horsman, in Monterrey.

The negotiations here in Monterrey have exposed the hypocrisy of governments' rhetoric on sustainable development. Unless there are substantial changes, particularly in the thinking of Northern governments, the outcome of the forthcoming Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development looks bleak.

"The only sustainable thing about this conference has been sustained discussions of how governments, dancing to the tune played by industry, ensure business access to markets. The so-called 'Monterrey Consensus' is simply an agreement between Industry and governments which will not address the widening gap between rich and poor nor the increasing degradation of the global environment - there can be no consensus when the voices of billions are not represented," added Horsman.

The Monterrey conference has done little to help the alleviation of poverty and environmental protection to achieve sustainable development which, in the 10 years since the Rio Earth Summit when the gap between rich and poor has widened and the environmental degradation increased. The Monterrey Consensus is simply an agreement which enables governments to rubber stamp ongoing environmental degradation and increasing disaffection by billions of poor people.

Furthermore, none of the eight test cases (1) for some success at Monterrey which Greenpeace laid down has been addressed. One key issue is that the International Financial Institutions and national governments should give priority to the funding for sustainable energy, such as efficiency and renewable energy sources as a means to fight against poverty. Access to clean energy is a key driver for development which is sustainable in economic, social and environmental terms.

At the Johannesburg Earth Summit, Greenpeace is calling for the launch of a massive uptake of renewable energy globally and for the two billion people who have no access to modern energy services.

Greenpeace calls upon the participants in the Monterrey conference to:

1. Call upon the IFIs and national governments to give priority to the funding of sustainable energy, such as efficiency and renewable energy sources; as a means to fight against poverty, and in line with the Monterrey consensus view that the IFIs must act in a manner that is consistent with the agreements adopted by UN institutions in the field of the environment;
2. Agree that the governments of OECD countries should immediately target 20 percent of their energy sector lending and support in the form of guarantees via their Export Credit Agencies to renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes. This should be followed by a plan to phase out support for non-sustainable 'conventional' energy activities within five years, and to ensure the same measure is adopted for all IFIs that OECD governments support;
3. Agree on a binding timetable for OECD countries to achieve at least the target of 0.7 percent of GDP for Overseas Development Aid (ODA), which was agreed at Rio 10 years ago. ODA has continued to shrink since 1992; only the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg and Sweden are currently meeting this target. The Monterrey Consensus reiterates the 0.7 percent target, but without a time-table there is little doubt that the OECD countries will be as inactive as they have been since Rio;
4. Agree to cancel the foreign debt and debt service of developing countries. Servicing massive foreign debt has been one of the major factors behind increased pressure on the biodiversity of developing countries, in contradiction with the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity of 1992; environmentally and socially destructive measures and adjustment programmes have been promoted and forced upon developing countries by the IMF and the World Bank, in breach of the stated commitment of these organisations to favour sustainable development. Instead, OECD governments should, for example, increase their financial commitments to promote the sustainable use and conservation of ancient forests;
5. Recognise the 'common but differentiated responsibilities' for environmental destruction enshrined in the Rio agreements of 1992. The Rio agreements (Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity) emphasised that it is primarily the responsibility of the industrialised countries -- who have received the "benefits" from environmental degradation -- to take action and to assist developing countries. Several countries, led by the US, have nevertheless since opposed this principle, and have used their position as bargaining chip; see for example George Bush on the Kyoto Protocol;
6. Agree to take effective steps to ensure that transnational corporations are legally bound to act responsibly. The Monterrey Consensus contains nice words about the need for the business sector to take account of the broader implications of their activities, but there is no reason to believe that corporations will take notice and end their "double standards" in developing countries as long as these requirements are not legally binding;
7. Adopt a time-table to put an end to trade-distorting export subsidies and environmentally destructive subsidies within the next decade. The Monterrey consensus "acknowledges" that subsidies are of particular concern to developing countries, but fails to propose action to resolve this which is at the heart of the continued inequity between developing and industrialised countries. Environmentally destructive subsidies (for example in the energy, agriculture and forestry sectors) have also undermined the Rio agreements, and put the sustainable and clean production sectors at a disadvantage. For example, annual subsidies to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries amount to between $US 250 - 300 billion, undermining the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; and
8. Agree that international trade rules must be subordinate to environmental rules, and not the reverse, and that legitimate restrictions to international trade can be important tools for sustainable development. Since the creation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) two years after the 1992 Earth Summit, WTO member states have been challenging legitimate trade-restricting measures aimed at protecting the environment and consumers, such as moratoria, bans and other restrictions to the use of genetically modified organisms in food and agriculture. International trade can be an important tool for poverty eradication and development, but it must recognise environmental limits and social concerns.

Media contacts

Contacts: Greenpeace campaigners in Monterrey: Paul Horsman (English) Juergen Knirsch (German) ++52 818 054 1772; Rosa Moreno (Spanish & French)+52 818 705 4475; Cecilia Navarro (Spanish) +52 (01) 555 940 6033