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Bush is under
attack for not attending Earth Summit
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JOHANNESBURG,
Aug 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. President George W.
Bush is making a mistake by not coming to the UN Earth Summit in
Johannesburg and is bedeviling the meeting's chances of resolving
pressing environmental issues, activists said Tuesday, August 20,
2002.
"I
think it is a big mistake and a shame for the summit," Green
Peace climate policy advisor Stephen Sawyer told Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
"I
think the President of the richest country in the world could spare a
few moments of his time to come to the world's poorest continent and
show he cared and that the rest of the world did not just represent
markets to exploit, resources to rip out and cheap labor for American
companies."
Bush
announced Monday, August 19, 2002, that he would send Secretary of
State Colin Powell to the summit in his place with a set of
"concrete" proposals for clean development.
About
100 heads of state and government - including those of Britain, China,
France, Germany and Japan - are expected to attend and Bush's absence
lays the U.S. administration open to being branded the scapegoat if
the summit fails.
Sawyer
said "the best chance of any U.S. flexibility" on issues
like the Kyoto protocol on climate change - which the Bush
administration rejects - would have been if Bush had had to sit down
with leaders like French President Jacques Chirac and German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder "who could put pressure on
him."
The
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) director of international policy
Gordon Shepherd told AFP the organization was "disappointed"
that Bush would not be attending.
"We
would have hoped that at the end of the day, the United States would
have come along. It's disappointing that they are not going to,"
Shepherd told AFP.
"I
don't think it will have the same effect without President Bush. He's
the man in charge, the buck stops with him," he said.
Meanwhile,
a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in South Africa told AFP some 300 delegates
including Powell and USAID chief Andrew Natsios would be present at
the conference.
"All
the top people, who are advising the President on these issues, will
be there. We believe the most important thing to get from this
conference is results," said Judy Moon.
At
the end of it, whether it's the President or whether he sends
qualified people, we must get results," she said.
In
a separate related development, a new report by a conservation group
warned that food and water supplies in Africa could be put at risk if
global warming continues at the current rate, according to BBC’s
online news service.
WWF
says climate change could spell disaster for millions, changes in the
amount and distribution of rainfall would affect crops and animals
alike.
As
an example of the impact of climate change, WWF says that the ice-cap
on Mount Kilimanjaro has shrunk by more than 80% since 1900.
The
WWF calls for implementing limits or reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions, which contribute to global warming, that were adopted at
the Kyoto international climate conference in 1997.
The
global implementation of the Kyoto protocol on gas emissions has been
effectively blocked by the decision of Bush to reject mandatory
controls on gas emissions in March 2001.
The
United States is the world largest producer of greenhouse gas
emissions.
Reduced
rainfall in the semi-arid Sahel region south of the Sahara desert is
another example of the effects of pollution and climate change on
Africa in the WWF report.
If
carbon pollution is left unchecked, climate change will have a
pervasive effect on life in Africa.
"It
will threaten the people, animals and natural resources that make
Africa unique," according to the report's author, Paul Desanker,
Co-Director of the Center for African Development Solutions in
Johannesburg.
He
said that the coming World Development Summit in Johannesburg must
decide to implement the convention on pollution and gas emissions
agreed at Kyoto five years ago.
The
United States is key to achieving this, he told BBC.
As
the largest producer of carbon pollution and greenhouse gas emissions,
the United States can make or break international attempts to limit
pollution.
"If
the U.S. doesn't come aboard to limit gas emissions, this will be a
complete waste of time," according to Desanker.
He
said that action on emissions by the European Union and other
industrialized countries will have no significant effect if the United
States is not persuaded to back the Kyoto convention.
