November 2002
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), recently concluded in Johannesburg, South Africa, had sustainable energy high on its agenda while global warming was missing in action. This disconnect virtually guaranteed that key decisions would fall short of the mark. The most important decisions were made elsewhere, when China and Russia, the world’s second and third largest polluters, respectively, announced that they will ratify the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement on climate change designed in 1997 to reduce the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The importance of these announcements cannot be overemphasized, and helps to underline the lack of seriousness with which the Bush Administration has approached this issue.
The lack of focus on climate protection is all the more disheartening when the WSSD is compared with the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, where concern about global warming led to the signing of an international treaty. Given the opposition of the United States to the Kyoto Protocol, however, and its determination to block action on the issue if the needarose, the outcome is no surprise. Neither was CIEL surprised by the failure of governments to agree on firm targets and timetables for increased useof renewable energy, considering the strong opposition of the United States to that measure as well. The Brazilian government had proposed a target of 10% of global energy to come from renewable sources by 2010, a target that CIEL strongly supported (see CIEL’s Law Issue Brief, Global Warming and Sustainable Development, August 2002).
That said, it is important to note that the WSSD Plan of Implementation said many useful things about the future of world energy production and consumption. Reading between the lines, global warming was clearly on the minds of many negotiators, if not on the formal agenda. The Plan, while light on firm commitments, clearly identifies actions the world must take to make energy sustainable, affordable and accessible. These include:
- Increasing the global share of renewable energy sources and their contribution to total energy supply;
- Accelerating the development, dissemination and deployment of energy efficiency and energy conservation technologies, as well as the transfer of such technologies to developing countries on favorable terms;
- Removing market distortions, including restructuring taxation and phasing out harmful subsidies to reflect their environmental impacts;
- Prompting international financial institutions to help create a level playing field for sustainable energy technologies;
- Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol in a timely manner.
CIEL understands these statements to express the will of the international community and, as such, to point the way for the development of international environmental law. We will watch closely and work hard in the coming years to see that countries do not stray from the sustainable energy path they have set for themselves.