"The World Summit...has left more grumbles than smiles," wrote Gulf Today from the United Arab Emirates. "The 65-page action plan is far short of what the world needs now."

"The very concept of attempting to answer so many life-threatening questions in such a cacophony of divergent interests almost led to the doom of summit. Success would have come only if the proposals had been made binding on governments."

The Netherlands' NRC Handelsblad agreed:

"Although Johannesburg has resulted in a plan of action, it is nothing more than that: a call that makes almost everybody feel comfortable, a promise...that can be broken without incurring a fine.

"BINDING TO NO ONE"

Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung said the action programme agreed in Johannesburg, full of "vague declarations binding to no one", was not worth its name.

Under the headline "The Summit of Lost Opportunity", the Irish Times commented:

"This meeting was most useful and valuable for the way it reinforced the determination of non-governmental expert and campaigning groups to press ahead with their activities and improve their networks. What was missing in Johannesburg was the political will to take the strong, concerted action so urgently required to save the planet."

Many said the World Summit on Sustainable Development had proven that such gigantic forums were not an effective way of resolving even global problems.

"Johannesburg became the summit of stagnation. Most participants acknowledge that...the excess of participants, documents and goals have a suffocating effect," wrote the Dutch Volkskrant.

"It is better to concentrate on one theme and one region. That offers the possibility of a concrete, small-scale approach, on a non-governmental organisation level...Therefore it should not be regretted if the era of mammoth conferences has ended."

The French daily Le Monde concurred:

"The United Nations is too vast a framework. These issues - be it environment, water, biodiversity - should be entrusted to ad hoc agencies with clear structures, and whose performance should be measurable."

"DANGEROUS ATTITUDE"

France's Liberation was one of several papers that criticised the United States - which successfully opposed the setting of targets for the introduction of renewable energy and whose failure to send President George W. Bush was seen by many as a sign of indifference to development and the environment.

"We cannot face up to these challenges without the dialogue and international cooperation from which the United States is distancing itself dangerously," the paper wrote.

De Volkskrant said the agreed goal of helping half a billion world citizens to a proper sewage system and fresh water within 15 years was a bright spot along with plans to safeguard world fish stocks.

Others said Johannesburg's main achievement might in the end be that it had not collapsed in acrimony, setting back for decades the very idea of dialogue between rich and poor and between polluters and environmentalists.

Britain's Financial Times said: "For all their disputes about targets set, targets missed and targets rejected, the delegates...seem to have engendered a greater sense of urgency about pollution of the planet and the plight of the poorer people in it."

"The strategy is not to set targets. It is easy to scoff at these because they are unenforceable. But the Johannesburg summit has usefully added some new objectives."

London's Independent concluded: "The results of the Earth Summit, which has closed in Johannesburg, are less impressive than we might have hoped but more substantial than we had feared.