D+C Development and Cooperation (No. 6, November/December 2002, p. 18-19)

While the results of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg were criticised as insufficient by many observers and participants, the German government draws a relatively positive balance.

Ten years after the World Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the international community for the first time drew up a comprehensive balance and agreed on new goals and implementation steps for global poverty reduction and environmental protection. Contrary to the fears of many people, the World Summit in Johannesburg adopted a 65-page action programme ('Plan of Implementation') and a political statement ('The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development'). In the declaration the heads of state and government leaders reaffirmed the worldwide importance of sustainable development, as well as of poverty reduction and climate and resources protection. The action plan includes key timetables and calls for the development of implementation programmes in several sectors.

Targets and implementation

• The proportion of people worldwide who have no access to clean water and basic sanitation is to be halved by 2015. The EU will make available Euro 1.4 billion per year for action programmes in this sector. Germany will participate with funding of about Euro 350 million per year.
• The share of renewable energy in primary energy consumption is to be increased significantly in all regions. True, the EU was unable to assert its demand for a binding agreement to increase the share of renewable energy to 15 per cent worldwide by 2010. But the EU was successful in initiating a declaration by like-minded countries whose signatories support the drawing up of clear timetables for increasing the use of renewable energy. Some 80 countries have already joined this coalition. This shows that those who reject demanding climate protection targets, above all the USA and the OPEC states, cannot impede climate policy and are seeing themselves increasingly isolated in international terms.
• The importance of the Kyoto Protocol and its ratification was reaffirmed in Johannesburg. Its implementation will bring with it competitive advantages for environment-friendly behaviour, whereas those countries which have not yet entered into the Kyoto Protocol will suffer disadvantages. This means the US government, too, will face increasing pressure from its commerce and industry to ratify the Protocol.
• Environmentally harmful subsidies are to be dismantled, even if for the time being no timetables have been laid down. The Summit agreed that multilateral environmental agreements would not be subject to World Trade Organisation rules. Unfortunately, the German Federal government was unable to achieve having the dismantling of agricultural subsidies adopted in the action plan, but it will continue to advocate this step, particularly within the EU.
• At German initiative, a move was blocked to qualify human rights in the health sector. No one will be allowed to cite alleged cultural or religious traditions if these violate human rights.
• The extinction of flora and fauna is to be slowed distinctly by 2010 - an important signal for the preservation of biodiversity.
• Benefits from the use of genetic resources are in future to be distributed more fairly. For this purpose, negotiations on an international regime within the framework of the UN Convention on Biodiversity are to be taken up. The Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) took a strong line on this demand of the developing countries.

Three new initiatives
of the
German Federal government

Under the joint responsibility of the Federal Development and Environment ministries, Germany strongly pushed sustainable development and global poverty reduction, and spoke up consistently for setting ambitious targets in the energy and water sectors in particular. Chancellor Schröder announced three new initiatives at the Summit:

1. Germany issued the invitation to an international conference on the use of renewable energy. The objective is to promote sustainable energy systems and place them in the service of poverty reduction.

2. The Federal government will participate in the global network of energy agencies agreed in Johannesburg.

3. Germany will expand to a truly strategic partnership its already successful cooperation with developing countries in the energy sector. The Federal government supports the developing countries in the use of renewable energy sources by means of a 'Sustainable Energy for Development' programme. A total of Euro 1 billion will be made available for that in the next five years: Euro 500 million for renewable energy and Euro 500 million for energy-saving measures in the developing countries.

Growing awareness
for need
of sustainability

The many German participants as well as the presentations and events at the German Stand in Johannesburg made clear that awareness, commitment and knowledge of the need to support sustainable development has grown greatly on all sides in Germany. The German Federal government, federal states and municipalities, commerce and industry, NGOs and academia actively co-shaped the Summit.

The success of Johannesburg can be measured not only by the agreements reached by the governments and the commitments they contain. Its political impact depends also quite decisively upon actors outside the official negotiating groups. Many new initiatives, networks and alliances were founded in Johannesburg, of which more can often be expected than from the delegates of some countries whose governments wish to let themselves in for only minimal consensus. Here are some examples of such initiatives:

• Thousands of people from all continents met to exchange views and experiences at the concurrent NGO Summit, to whose funding and organisation the German Federal government made decisive contributions.
• The World Mayors' Conference agreed to advance sustainable development via local Agenda 21 groups more effectively and give each other mutual support by means of partnerships.
• The Economic Council for Sustainable Development, in which leading companies are represented, got together with Greenpeace in order to work towards greater observance of social and ecological principles by corporate managements.

Members of local and national parliaments founded the initiative "Parliamentarians' Implementation Watch", which with the support of the World Bank and UNDP is to press for realisation of the Millennium Development Goals.

• Finally, the UN Secretariat registered by the end of the Summit 300 partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society organisations, whose goal is implementation of the action plan and have declared themselves willing to subject their work to independent review

The World Summit thus gave important impulses for sustainable development in the full meaning of the term. However, with its many participants and extensive range of topics it also made clear the limits of such mega events. Therefore we should think about a new format for UN conferences which is oriented on action. For instance, a follow-up process and subsequent conferences on the individual goals of the Millennium Declaration would be conceivable.