Mbeki opens Earth summit with call for action

Thabo Mbeki slammed rich nations for monopolising the world's resources Keystone

The world's second Earth Summit has opened in the South African city of Johannesburg with a drum beat for action.

The host country’s president, Thabo Mbeki, used the official opening ceremony to call on world leaders not to leave the conference without reaching an accord.

At the ceremony in Ubuntu Village – the summit’s main exhibition site and home to the Swiss information platform, “Sustainable Switzerland” – drummers welcomed delegates to Johannesburg, while Mbeki highlighted the problems that needed to be resolved.

“We see a world that is ailing from poverty, inequality and environmental degradation,” he said.

“This is a world in which a rich minority enjoys unprecedented levels of consumption, comfort and prosperity, while the poor majority endures daily hardship and suffering,” he added.

Looking for agreement

The ceremony came at the end of two days of preparatory talks aimed at smoothing the way for world leaders to reach agreement on how to combat poverty and save the world’s limited natural resources.

Serge Chappatte, deputy director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and chief Swiss negotiator at the weekend talks, said a multilateral agreement was still a long way off.

“The problems are complex and the list is too long but we have to go through the list to try to get a comprehensive and if possible coherent view of the world’s problems,” Chappatte told swissinfo.

“What we are going to end up with is the smallest common denominator, a plan of action that falls far below the expectations of Switzerland, but we cannot afford to fail.

“At the moment it’s like in poker – the major players are just keeping their cards close to their chest… but I hope that in the coming days we will progressively come to a consensus.”

Demonstrations

But even as the pre-summit talks were drawing to a close inside the city’s vast Sandton Congress Centre – transformed for the duration of the conference into a virtual fortress protected by thousands of police officers – hundreds of anti-globalisation protesters were demonstrating in Johannesburg against the presence of multinational corporations at the conference.

A number of CEOs – including Jörgen Centermann, head of the Swiss-Swedish engineering group ABB, and Syngenta’s Heinz Imhof – are due to attend the summit.

Many stand accused by demonstrators of attempting to hijack the sustainable development agenda and of trying to turn the summit into an opportunity to mix with world leaders and ensure that free trade and liberalisation of the global markets is not compromised by sustainable development negotiations.

Non-governmental organisations attending a parallel conference near the summit site expressed concern on Monday that the world meeting was unlikely to produce concrete results.

“There is no feeling here that the delegates locked in the conference centre will come up with any real agreement,” said Wangpo Tethong, Greenpeace Switzerland’s representative in Johannesburg.

Political signal

But the Swiss ambassador to South Africa, Rudolf Schaller, said that even if the summit failed to deliver an accord, it would not be the end of the political process towards sustainable development.

“Even if the opinion here is that the efforts will not bring the results they should,” he said, “this itself will be an important political signal: that more needs to be done in the future, and maybe this will be the outcome of the conference.”

Summit organisers hope that sustainable development will not just be a topic of discussion between world leaders meeting behind closed doors, but that the thousands of people who have descended on Johannesburg will practice what they preach throughout the ten-day duration of the conference.

Accreditation cards handed to delegates have been fashioned from recycled plastic bottles, while a “sustainability barometer” strategically placed inside the conference centre is designed to inform summit participants just how much waste they themselves are generating each day.

by Ramsey Zarifeh in Johannesburg

Earth summit summary

The host country’s president, Thabo Mbeki, said the top priorities at the conference should be tackling poverty, inequality and environmental degradation.

Thousands of police have been drafted in to protect delegates attending the main summit sessions at the heavily fortified Sandton Convention Centre.

Serge Chappatte, deputy director of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, is leading the Swiss negotiating team ahead of the arrival of the foreign minister, Joseph Deiss, next week.