ANALYSIS - Earth Summit deal-a grey day for green energy?
Date: 04-Sep-02
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Author: Robin Pomeroy
Facing stern opposition from the United States and OPEC countries, attempts by the European Union and many South American countries to set the world's first target for increasing the global share of renewable energies failed.
Green groups were aghast.
"This deal is worse than no deal," said Friends of the Earth's Kate Hampton in a comment typical of green campaigners who see renewable energy as the only alternative to fossil fuels, which are blamed for potentially disastrous global warming.
The wording agreed on the energy chapter of what will be adopted as the summit's action plan for sustainable development promotes "cost effective technologies" to the poor, "including fossil fuel technologies as well as renewable energy".
This may give some cheer to champions of development in a world where some two billion people, a third of the world's population, have no modern energy. But it did little to turn the world away from its thirst for oil, environmentalists said.
Fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas make up about 80 percent of world energy use. Environmentalists see them as unsustainable not only because they are finite but also because they emit heat-trapping gases when burned, leading to climate change.
Alex de Roo, a Dutch Green Euro MP, said the summit had forgotten its role of supporting "sustainable" development - economic growth that would not damage the environment.
"The spirit of Rio is lost," said de Roo, referring to the first Earth Summit in Brazil in 1992 which issued a blueprint for sustainable development called Agenda 21.
"This was about classic economic development for the poor, and the link with sustainability has been lost."
SHADOW OF BUSH
Kalee Kreider of Washington-based National Environmental Trust said the lack of targets for renewable energies was a victory for U.S. President George W. Bush, the man who pulled the United States out of the Kyoto climate change pact and is reviled by green campaigners as a friend of the oil industry.
"Despite the fact that President Bush is on his ranch, his shadow has loomed large in Johannesburg," Kreider said.
Bush declined an invitation to the summit, attended by some 100 other heads of state and government.
Margot Wallstrom, the EU Environment Commissioner who was a key figure in keeping Kyoto afloat after the U.S. pullout, said the deal was far from a complete failure for renewable energies.
"What we have done is for the first time, we got the energy issue discussed as one of the core issues of sustainable development," she told reporters.
The fact that energy had dominated the summit boded well for the future, she said, adding that many countries which had said they could not accept targets told her afterward that they were sorry the EU's proposal failed.
South African Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka told EU delegates as the meeting broke up: "Don't despair. You have raised the challenge.
"Many of you have raised the baton. I'd like to think that (in future) we can give it our best shot...clearly this (deal) is not enough."
But as the next Earth Summit may well be at least 10 years away, where do climate change campaigners take their battle now? They already rule out nuclear energy as an acceptable, climate-friendly option.
THINK GLOBAL WARMING...
One arena may be the Kyoto Protocol, the global pact on cutting largely fossil fuel-related emissions.
Although that treaty was dealt a near fatal blow when Bush pulled out last year, it looked a shade healthier this week when Canadian Prime Minster Jean Chretien used the summit to announce parliament would vote on approving Kyoto by year-end.
Chretien's Liberals have a comfortable majority in parliament and Kyoto's approval is likely if the party backs it.
If Russia also ratifies, as it has said it intends to, the treaty will come into legal force, requiring some action on cutting emissions by the end of the decade.
