Not just a population but a people.
it is now ten years later 2012,
"With the world's most powerful governments fully behind the corporate globalisation agenda, it was agreed even before the Summit that there would be no new mandatory agreements. Rather the focus was to be on implementation of old agreements, mainly through partnerships with the private sector. In other words, those aspects of sustainability that are convenient for private sector would be implemented." Kenny Bruno, CorpWatch ++ [ The Earth Summit's Deathblow to Sustainable Development; CorpWatch article; September 4 ]
"Compared to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, this summer's World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg was bound to be somewhat disappointing. The negotiations leading up to Johannesburg had not provided any reason to expect dramatic break-throughs, and there were none. After the meeting, many non-governmental organizations denounced the WSSD as a failure. Even seasoned U.N. officials, while relieved that the Summit had not broken down completely, were rather muted in their responses." Hilary French, Worldwatch Institute ++ [ The From Rio to Johannesburg and Beyond: Assessing the Summit ]
"We invited the leaders of the world to come here and commit themselves to sustainable development, to protecting our planet, to maintaining the essential balance and to go back home and take action. It is on the ground that we will have to test how really successful we are. But we have started off well. Johannesburg is a beginning." Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General ++ [ The Johannesburg Summit Test: What Will Change? Feature Story United Nations; September 25 ]
"The Plan of Action is not much of a plan, and it contains almost no action. We've spent the last year and half doing damage control. We now have to move forward with a 'coalition of the willing,' those countries, communities, organisations, and people who want to deliver a sustainable energy future." Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace Climate Policy Director ++ [ Exxon buys summit, planet; Greenpeace press release; September 3 ]
"The Earth Summit should have been about protecting the environment and fighting poverty and social destruction. Instead it has been hijacked by free market ideology, by a backward-looking US administration and by global corporations that help keep reactionary politicians in business. This is the worst political sell-out in decades." Charles Secrett, Friends of the Earth US.
"Negotiators were frantically working nights to reach consensus. Activists were busy lobbying negotiators for changes. In this flurry to agree on the right language, no one seemed to notice that the draft itself was so watered down that even if all the brackets were removed, the result would amount to next to nothing. No wonder then that the final document consists only of repackaged soft targets — sometimes even more diluted than previous agreements." Sunita Narain, Down To Earth ++ [ The World After; Down To Earth; September issue ]
However, it could have been worse. At the very least, the summit did not reverse the commitments made in the Doha trade round and the Monterrey summit on finance for development; at best, it forged a greater sense of urgency to live up to commitments made at the Rio Earth Summit a decade ago. About two-thirds of the final Plan of Implementation consist of reiterations of earlier commitments. Friends of the Earth, for example, has analysed the final text and found precisely two new and specific targets in the whole Plan of Implementation: To halve by 2015 the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation; and to eliminate destructive fishing practices by 2012. According to Friends of the Earth, in every other case "existing commitments are simply reaffirmed, watered down, or trashed altogether." ++ [ Earth Summit Betrayal; See You All in Mexico; Friends of the Earth press release; September 3 ]
http://www.earthsummit2012.org/
moving foward now i hope towards anything as its better than nothing right!! some movement?
