by Piyaporn Hawiset
18 June 2002
Two weeks of talks on an action plan for sustainable development in Bali ended on June 7, 2002 at midnight, and failed to reach a deal over a disagreement on whether developed countries should pledge more aid and trade to finance the plan. Delegates from around the world descended on Bali in the fourth and last leg before the Johannesburg Summit to align economic development with social and environmental interests under a 10-year action plan to be known as the Bali Commitment.
"There's no agreement, it's a deadlock," said Slamet Hidayat, a member of the Indonesian delegation, late on that day. He added that negotiations on the action plan would continue in the three months before the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, slated to begin in late August.
Delegates from around the world descended on Bali in the fourth and last leg before the Johannesburg Summit to align economic development with social and environmental interests under a 10-year action plan to be known as the Bali Commitment. But talks at the United Nations (UN) fourth preparatory committee meeting there were slow from the onset and fell into a deadlock on June 7. Delegates remained divided between North and South over the issue of finance and trade.
Negotiations went on until the early morning over the previous few days, with pressure from the Indonesian side to get delegates to come to an agreement in Bali. A last attempt to salvage the negotiations with a compromised document by South African environment and tourism minister M.V. Moosa failed to bridge the differences.
Slamet said that the negotiation block of Group 77 plus China, in which Indonesia is a member, had accepted the document, which only revised Chapter IX on the means of implementation covering finance and trade issues. Also accepting the document was Norway of the European Union and New Zealand. New Zealand is part of the JUSCANZ (Japan, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) negotiation block, which had been adamantly objecting the proposed document.
"The U.S. and other members of JUSCANZ were against Moosa's proposal while EU countries were mixed about it, Slamet said, adding that the U.S. appeared to have the most objections. He said that developing countries were pushing for more aid from developed countries, reasoning that without funding, the action plan could not be implemented, but developed countries were afraid assistance funds would simply disappear as all developing countries were quite corrupt.
The decision to end talks and freeze the action plan until Johannesburg had yet to be approved by the plenary meeting, which should have been held late on the night of June 7.
Since June 5, the meeting was joined by 118 ministers who took part in the preparation for the political declaration for the Johannesburg Summit but was not directly involved in the negotiation of the action plan.
In his speech for the political declaration, the U.S. representative to the UN Economic and Social Council and a senior delegate member, Ambassador Sichan Siv, stressed the importance of trade, domestic and foreign investment as development resources, while omitting the word aid. A delegate member of Venezuela, which lead the negotiation block G-77 plus China, said Moosa's proposal was non-negotiable and that it came under the rule "take it or leave it". She said the U.S. and the EU began to negotiate it paragraph by paragraph since Moosa's proposed document was handed out. If delegates could not agree on Moosa's document, she said, the G-77 plus China block would return to the original chapter IX of the action plan drafted on June 2 and bring the remaining contentious issues to Johannesburg.
The June 2nd draft plan of implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development was the outcome from the first week of talks in Bali.
Negotiations in Bali began with the Chairman's Text, which was a summary of the three previous preparatory meetings in New York made by the meeting's chairman, Emil Salim. The former Indonesian environmental minister said he wanted the Bali Commitment to contain definite targets, measured by time and actions. But what started out as a 39-page Chairman's Text covering 100 points, grew to a 158-point, 78-page draft plan, weakening the plan with political rhetoric, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) said.
Various international and local NGOs joined protests and accused the JUSCANZ negotiation block of watering down the Chairman's Text with words like "promote", "encourage" and "explore". Greenpeace managed to stage a late night protest inside the conference building, which was effectively under UN control since the meeting began.
It urged governments to prepare themselves better for Johannesburg, taking the three months to commit themselves to including the concrete time targets and action under the Bali Commitment.