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Ramesh Menon in New Delhi
Dr R K Pachauri, director general, Tata Energy Research Institute and the chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change on Saturday said a lot of the agreements and plans envisaged at the Rio earth summit ten years ago was not translated into action.
"But civil society is much less patient today about inaction than ten years ago when Rio summit took place. That is why the Johannesburg summit is not a waste. There will be a lot of noise if nothing happens. A lot of protests have already started. Corporates were there in big numbers as they have read the writing on the wall and have to act," Pachauri said after his return from the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg.
He said one of the 'most interesting meetings' was the joint press conference of the Greenpeace and the president of the World Business Council of Sustainable Development to appeal for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on emissions. "This could never have happened before and it was a good sign that business houses were now seeing sense in protecting the environment and working towards a better world," he said.
There were more corporate heads than government heads in Johannesburg, he said, adding, "It is a healthy shift."
He quoted United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan who said, "We are not asking corporations to do anything different from their normal business. We are asking them to do their normal business differently."
Pachauri said that rich countries were not showing an eagerness to help developing countries in areas like technology transfer and overseas development assistance.
After Rio, it was decided that 0.7 per cent of the GDP of developed countries should be given as assistance to the developing countries. Except for Sweden, Norway, Netherlands and Denmark, which went over the target, others went below the set target. The United States managed to fulfil only 0.1 per cent.
Pachauri said that it was estimated that developing countries would require $561.5 billion annually from 1993 to 2000 to address the objectives of sustainable development. Of this $419.6 billion was to be generated domestically and the balance of $149.9 billion was to be provided by wealthier countries. But current transfers from rich countries to the rest of the world was only a measly $53.7 billion, he said.
He also said the rich countries were ruining the economies of the poor by dumping, adding a 'fair playing ground' was required for trade.
He hailed the decision taken in Johannesburg to halve the number of people in the world who do not have proper sanitation and drinking water by 2015 and to conserve fisheries.
It was also decided to phase out toxic chemicals, which he said, was an ambitious target, as it was not easy to police it.
The real challenge, he said was to ensure that all the decisions were monitored and an effective mechanism evolved to implement it.
For the first time developed countries, he said, had shown an eagerness to change consumption and production patterns.
Pachauri said that there was a role for countries like India to mobilise other developing countries of the world to ensure fair trade and also that the broad agreements reached at the summit get translated into action.
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