Back Issue - September 2002
SO THE SUMMIT IS OVER !
NOW WHAT ?
There has been plenty of comment in the
media about how little was achieved at the World Summit. So
there is little need to add to it here. What is remarkable,
however, is the speed with which the outcome has been eclipsed
by other concerns and forgotten. Prime Minister Tony Blair
made one speech on the day before the Summit, spoke for five
minutes at it, stayed in Johannesburg for less than one day,
and was almost immediately away to Camp David for a tete-a-tete
with President Bush about Iraq. It would be nice to think
he chastised Bush for his absence from the Summit and the
counterproductive contribution from his delegation, as far
as survival on earth is concerned, but there was fat chance
of that!
So, under the heading
of 'Now What?' we can consider:
- What
can or will be the fate of the problems
which were and were not effectively addressed?
- What
are the likely consequences?
- What
can we do about them, as individuals, in our localities,
through organisations to which we belong, and as organisations,
such as SAVE OUR WORLD?
Outcomes and consequences
The most glaring problem
which was not effectively addressed
will come as no surprise to previous visitors to this web-site.
It is Climate Change. We keep banging on about its exclusion
from the World Summit agenda, its stabilisation being a precondition
for meeting all of the key areas which were on the agenda,
and its exclusion compounding denial at the international
level, which has been repeatedly asserted (in our 'Back
Issues') at personal, local and national levels.
These points have been made in our letters
to the UK Environment Minister, Michael Meacher (see the 'Challenge''
page). In his reply to me at the conference which initiated
the first letter, he suggested that the next international
Climate Change Conference (COP 8) was the place to raise climate
change issues instead of the World Summit. Well, it now appears
this meeting, at the end of October in New Delhi, will only
focus on adapting to Climate Change, not its prevention -
implying that we all have to adapt to it as an unavoidable
fait accompli like 'globalisation'. NO WAY!!! - but I shall
return to that later.
Allied to tackling Climate Change is the
matter of Renewable Energy, which was on the agenda and was
proposed to tackle CC without having to say so (in order to
appease the representatives of the United States and other
contrarians). Target figures were proposed for RE, but they
were vulnerable to being whittled away without explicit reference
to stabilising the climate, as I and others argued at the
preparatory stages to the Summit.
When it came to the Summit, the USA with
the help of Japan, ensured that no target for RE was set in
any case, in exchange for agreeing one for halving the number
of people lacking basic sanitation by 2015 - without any clear
idea how the latter may be delivered. So nothing was gained
on energy. The best hope for Renewable Energy targets lies
in a conference which the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroder,
said, in his speech to the Summit, that he proposed to arrange.
It seems to stand a good chance of taking place, given his
recent cliff-hanger of a re-election partly due to his response
to devastating floods in his country, and with the help of
a greatly strengthened Green Party in Germany.
None of the other environmental issues
can unequivocally be said to have been adequately addressed.
There was a commitment to restore fish stocks urgently, though
the target date of 2015 'where possible' was considered too
distant by one prominent non-governmental organisation (NGO),
and the idea of a 'maximum sustainable yield' was thought
hard to judge scientifically. Agreed aims to reduce loss of
biodiversity significantly by 2010 and attempt to strengthen
forest law and reduce illegal logging were worthy but unconvincing.
When it came to trade-related problems
of tackling the destruction of natural resources, the best
that can be said is that attempts were beaten off to make
global environmental treaties subservient to untrammelled
'free trade', as promoted by the World Trade Organisation.
On 'sustainable consumption' (whose very description presumes
a top-down globalised perspective without acknowledgement
of localised subsistence economies, in my view,) agreement
to produce an action programme and publish indicators to measure
progress - is the kind of euphemistic talk which is only too
familiar in connection with public education and health policies
in the UK. With luck, shoppers will get informative eco-labels
to provide them with some choice of products to buy.
The cycle between poverty and environmental
degradation was recognised as urgently in need of being broken.
However, any progress on this, the health and education of
women, and halving the numbers of people who live on less
than $1 per day, was considered likely to be slow to emerge
and depend on getting the other programmes working first.
Help with poverty eradication, exacerbated by AIDS and the
current drought, specifically in Africa, was distrusted by
the constituent countries, as being tied too closely to big
business and in danger of further exploitation of resources
rather than real help with development.
What we can do
The range of issues is clearly too wide
for any organisation to cover in any depth. Thanks to networking
and specifically the Internet, it is very simple for an increasing
number of people to choose their preferred avenue and allies
for applying their efforts in the way they most wish to do.
The largest and best known environmental NGOs cover a wide
range of avenues, such as Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace
and WWF, which can be reached through our 'Links' page,
at least for their branches in the UK.
In SAVE OUR WORLD we specialise in what
we regard as the most fundamental environmental problem of
Climate Change and the opportunities provided by awareness
raising and environmental education (as you would expect from
our Objectives at the top of the 'Home page', and our
Principles on the 'About Us' page). Even at the local
and the most 'hands-on' level we aim not to replicate what
other organisations can do with greater knowledge, expertise
and resources than we have. So, if we are asked for local
advice on e.g. waste reduction, recycling of materials or
horticulture, we are only too happy to refer on those enquiries
to local organisations we know. For we maintain our local
linkages on general environmental matters through representation
on a local Agenda 21 Forum, and, even more locally, the nearest
'Town Centre' Forum.
Our radical slant on Climate Change is
probably fairly obvious to you from the general content of
this web-site. What we consider to be unique about us is our
determined focus on the bottom line of what has to be done
to stabilise the climate. We don't mind how many times we
have to reiterate this commitment in different ways, as you
can probably tell from over one hundred letters for publication,
listed in our Yahoo Group. We believe that 'stating our truth'
not only provides a benchmark of sanity, inspiration and a
direction for others who have ears to hear, but it is self-empowering
rather than conceding defeat, (as argued by David Edwards
in 'The Compassionate Revolution'). From this you can tell
that the values we hold directly inform the actions we take
as well as the way we go about them. They also entail concern
for the values of others both with whom we collaborate and
whom we challenge.
We consider that the outcome of the Summit
confirms the need for the challenges we have been issuing
on Climate Change since last autumn and the call for a Coalition
of NGOs which have been the subject of our last two Boiling
Point issues (now listed as 'Back Issues'). Indeed,
a number of factors make this the perfect time for launching
the Coalition:
-
the failure of the
Summit in this area and the apparently defeatist plans
for COP 8,
-
complaints from the
Insurance Industry that their fears for the future costs
of weather-related disasters were ignored at the Summit,
-
intimations that the
Bush Administration has intentions on the oil reserves
of Iraq which are crassly suicidal for global warming,
-
and the radical rethinks
that other NGO networks on Climate Change are having to
make just now.
We have just taken part in an initial
meeting about such a Coalition and I shall inform you of its
progress, as the ideas for it develop.
Our other main current activity is based
in London at the present time, and will be presented on the
national and local version of our web-site (www.save-our-world.org.uk).
This is an educational workshop around Climate Change to take
into schools and then to public summer events. It was initiated
as an improvement upon the interactive educational facility
which was planned as the focus of our local annual Save our
World environmental festivals in 1998, 1999, and 2000 - but
in fact competed poorly with the musical entertainment that
attracted most of the visitors. Experience of similar environmental
educative features and 'speakers forums' at festivals and
fairs generally, including well-known ones where I have been
asked to speak, suggest that a radically new approach is needed
if the attention of the public on serious environmental problems
is to be won at such events.
This is what we are setting out to do
- in a professionally planned and delivered way. The workshop
is so far intended to include environmental video clips, reactions
from audiences about what can be done, and role playing exercises
which are aimed to instil confidence about helping to bring
about change.
Given recent declared governmental and
other interest in public awareness raising about the environment
in the UK, we believe that this initiative is also coming
at just the right time. Unlike most environmental NGOs, we
are specifically trying to get through to the general public
collectively, in their own localities at school and adult
age ranges, rather than to the already 'converted' individuals
at recognised 'green' events.
Conclusion
Of
course there is always much more that
needs to be done than we or any organisation can do, in order
to support people in developing the necessary faith and confidence
to take positive action, in the face of such a discouraging
outcome of the World Summit. We believe in compassionate determination
in keeping on doing what needs to be done, without attachment
to the fruits of our actions - as taught by Lord Krishna in
the allegorical epic of The Bhagavad Gita. We invite you to
do the same, in spirit and by becoming a member of SAVE OUR
WORLD - via the 'About Us' page of this web-site.
'A person
should engage himself in performing
good actions. He should not wonder whether they are going
to bear fruit or not. In the Bhagavad Gita the Lord says:
"O Arjuna, keep performing good actions. Never wonder
what kind of fruit you are going to attain and when."
No action will go to waste. When the right season comes,
the trees blossom and bear fruit.'
Swami Muktananda
(C) Jim Scott 27/9/2002
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