Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Ten years after Rio, in 2002, the Johannesburg Summit reviewed the decade's
progress. The tensions apparent in 1992 remained, with the ideas and values of
market liberals and institutionalists still dominating. Although the final Declaration
noted that global disparities in wealth and environmental degradation now risk
becoming entrenched and that, unless the world acts in a manner that fundamentally
changes the lives of the poor, these people may lose confidence in democratic systems
of government, seeing their representatives as nothing more than sounding brass or
tinkling cymbals, as stated in Paragraph 15 of the 2002 Johannesburg Declaration
on Sustainable Development (UN, 2002a). Little was said about financing international
development, although in the same year, at an International Conference on Finance
for Development in Monterrey, north-east Mexico, a consensus was reached on
financing sustainable development, fostering health and education, providing shelter,
eradicating poverty and sustaining economic growth. The role of trade and overseas
development aid, the importance of debt reduction and good governance in the
developing world, and the mobilization of national economic resources and external
investment were directly addressed. Economic crises underscore the importance of
effective social safety nets (UN, 2002b).
For many anti-globalization protestors who had earlier demonstrated against the
extension of the free trade rules of the WTO in Seattle, the Johannesburg Summit
was also a disappointment, despite a few positive advances. Economic insecurity
was recognized as affecting human well-being, and globalization itself was recog-
nized as a new challenge for those advocating sustainable development. And, despite
all the criticisms, disappointments and missed opportunities, the intense diplomatic
activities did achieve a number of important things, not least a recognition that
sustainable development at a global level has led to, and requires, policies, procedures
and principles supporting intergovernmental cooperation and a global civil society
that will check, monitor, promote and campaign for change in the face of official
reluctance, indifference or denial, and some acute crises in the global economy.
Thus the first fifteen years of the twenty-first century has seen economic and
financial crises and limited progress with regard to sustainable development. In
December 2009 a major climate conference was convened in Copenhagen to decide
the successor to Kyoto, but no legally binding treaty emerged from the tortuous
negotiations that were frequently deadlocked. China, India and the United States
were each in turn blamed for the conference failure by politicians from other nations,
international NGOs and media commentators. However, delegates did agree that
global warming should not exceed two degrees centigrade but set no actual targets
for cutting emissions. As Benito Muller (2010: ii) of the Oxford Institute for Energy
Studies wrote, the real culprits were not the negotiators at Copenhagen but 'a
lack
of political will and leadership
during the months leading up to the Conference to
engage in real negotiations'. However, over the next few years talks continued at
Cancun, Durban, Bangkok, Bonn and in November-December 2012 in Doha, Qatar.
A number of documents were produced at Doha, collectively known as The Doha
Climate Gateway, which extended the Kyoto protocol to 2020 but limited the scope
of global carbon emissions to 15 per cent because Japan, Russia, Canada and the
US did not participate and because China, India and Brazil were classified as
developing nations at Kyoto and are consequently not subject to these emissions
reduction targets. Climate campaigners and others reviewing these negotiations have
frequently expressed their exasperation and frustration. In 2011 Kevin Anderson
