Earth Summit Enters Decisive Phase

After a week of polite diplomacy, behind-doors wrangling and vauge commitments, the United Nations sustainability conference in South Africa enters its crucial phase this weekend.

The remaining five days will see the arrival of the ministers and heads of state of the 191 countries taking part to apply their signature to the action plan debated by the various country delegations this week.

Germany’s Environmental Minister Jürgen Trittin (photo) arrived on Friday and the country’s Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul is expected in on Saturday for final negotiations before Chancellor Gerhard Schröder arrives on Monday.

The German ministers are committed to push through the major sticking points that continue to separate the European Union and the United States. The disagreements over setting quotas on renewable energy, farm subsidies and improving access to drinking water and sanitation could endanger the positive outcome of the conference.

Hardest work ahead

Until now, delegates from governments, companies, environmental and developmental organizations have been able to agree on about 95 percent of the final action plan, the second such plan after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

After beginning in a rather dour mood, the summit has picked up with the announcement of progress on some divisive issues.

The United Nations praised, for instance, a Tuesday agreement on protecting the world’s fisheries from further exploitation. The agreement, which will be incroporated into the final action plan, aims to restore most of the world’s over-fished regions by 2015.

The timeplan could be one of the few set at the Summit. The United States has been loathe to set timetables and quotas for environmental and developmental change, preferrring to let countries set their own standards.

Sticking points

That could put a EU-favored quota on the use of renewable energy at risk. The EU wants renewable energy to comprise 15 percent of the world's energy use by 2010, 2 percent more than it is now. The US is against the timetable.

The EU faces a similar US argument with regard to a UN proposal to double the number of people with access to clean water and sanitation.

Agricultural subsidies have also proved a divisive topic, but not just between Europe and the United States. Lesser developed countries have demanded better access to European and American agricultural markets, currently protected by troublesome state subsidies.

The European Union has offered to stick to a plan, agreed to at the World Trade Organization Summit last year in Doha, Qatar, to discuss better access in the next three years.

"I'm afraid the utmost that might be reached will be the stabilizaiton of the aims of Doha," Wieczorek-Zeul (photo) told DW-RADIO.

Wieczorek-Zeul and Trittin said they would prefer to focus on solvable differences separating the United States from the EU and the UN on developmental and environmental policy.

Both are taking a pragmatic approach and urged compromise in light of the recent flood catastrophes in Eastern Europe and Germany and the upcoming anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“It is important because everyone feels now that the climate change is really endangering us all," she said. "Also it is one year after the 11 of September which should also remind us that fighting proverty is one major aspect in preventing terrorist groups from gaining support.”