[R-G] The Failure of Global Environmental Reform- JB Foster

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Monthly Review January 2003
Volume 54, Number 8
January 2003

A PLANETARY DEFEAT: THE FAILURE OF GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL REFORM
by John Bellamy Foster

This article is reconstructed from the notes for several talks
delivered in Johannesburg, South Africa during events leading up to
the World Summit on Sustainable Development, August-September
2002. N.JBF

The first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 generated hopes
that the world would at long last address its global ecological problems
and introduce a process of sustainable development. Now, with a second
summit being held ten years later in Johannesburg, that dream has to a
large extent faded. Even the principal supporters of this process have
made it clear that they do not expect much to be achieved as a result of
the Johannesburg summit, which is likely to go down in history as an
absolute failure. We need to ask ourselves why.

The first reason is perhaps the most obvious, at least to
environmentalists. The decade between Rio and Johannesburg has seen the
almost complete failure of the Rio Earth Summit and its Agenda 21 to
produce meaningful results. This has highlighted the weaknesses of global
environmental summitry.

Second, the U.S. refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention
on Biological Diversity, the two main conventions evolving out of Rio, has
raised questions about the capacity of capitalism to address the world
environmental crisis. The United States, as the hegemonic power of the
capitalist system, further signaled its rejection of global environmental
reform by announcing that President Bush would not be attending the
Johannesburg summit.

Third, both the rapid globalization of the neoliberal agenda in the 1990s
and the emergence of a massive antiglobalization movement in Seattle in
November 1999 have highlighted the system's antagonism toward all attempts
to promote economic and environmental justice.

Fourth, the World Summit on Sustainable Development is occurring in a
period of economic and financial crisis that bodes ill for those concerned
with the issues of the environment and third world development. The
capitalist world economy as a whole is experiencing global recession.
Hardest hit are the countries of the global South, which, thanks to
neoliberal globalization, are caught in worsening economic crises over
which they have less and less control.

Fifth, we are witnessing the growth of a new virulent wave of imperialism
as the United States has begun a world war on terrorism in response to the
events of September 11, 2001. This is taking the form of U.S. military
interventions not only in Afghanistan but also potentially against Iraq,
along with stepped-up U.S. military activities in locations throughout the
third world. Under these circumstances, war is likely to trump the
environment.

Sixth, South Africa, which nearly ten years ago became a symbol of human
freedom with the overthrow of apartheid, was chosen mainly for that reason
as the site of the second earth summit. It has now come to symbolize for
many something quite different: the rapacious growth of neoliberalism and
the refusal to address major environmental and social crises.

full article at http://www.monthlyreview.org/0103jbf.htm

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Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
--
In the contradiction lies the hope.
                                     --Bertholt Brecht