Examination of Witnesses (Questions 75
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 4 DECEMBER 2002
DR PAUL
JEFFERISS, DR
DAVID ELLIS,
MR MATT
PHILLIPS AND
MS LIANA
STUPPLES
Chairman
75. Good afternoon. I am sorry that we are meeting
in this absurdly large room. As usual, the villain is television,
we are being televised, and there are only a limited number of
rooms where this can happen; this is one of them, and today we
got the short straw. So I apologise for that. I am aware that
one of you, I think Dr Jefferiss, has got to go promptly at 5.15,
is that correct?
(Dr Jefferiss) If that is convenient
and possible, it would be preferable for me; it is not essential.
76. Can I say, fine, that is no problem for
us, but we would be grateful if you could keep your answers reasonably
short, since we have only a limited amount of time and there is
quite a lot we would like to question you on, so we will try to
be brief with our questions if you will try to be as succinct
as possible with your answers. Thank you very much indeed for
coming along this afternoon. Stressing to you again the brevity
point, is there anything you would like say, either one representing
you all, or whatever, before we start the questioning?
(Dr Jefferiss) I had a few, very brief comments on
behalf of the RSPB, just to say that my role at the RSPB is Head
of Environmental Policy, and in that role I co-ordinated the RSPB's
activities regarding Johannesburg and led a six-person delegation
there. In addition, we participated both through the Green Globe
Task Force, which advises the Foreign Office, and UNED Forum,
on which I sit as an Executive Committee member. I am also a member
of the Development and Environment Group. I was also on the Government
delegation in Bali, and RSPB was represented on the Government
delegation in Johannesburg. So we have a number of direct and
indirect engagements with the process; and also we produced two
or three specific projects for Johannesburg, which David Ellis,
our Trade Policy Officer, was briefly going to list.
(Dr Ellis) Very briefly, the projects we took to Johannesburg
focused on education for sustainability, on the economics of conservation,
and on indicators for sustainable development, and we worked also
with Birdlife International as a global partnership, with representatives
from 17 of our partner organisations, many from the south.
(Ms Stupples) My name is Liana Stupples. I am Policy
and Campaigns Director at Friends of the Earth, and my prime responsibility
with regard to Johannesburg was co-ordinating all the work of
Friends of the Earth here in the UK. And my colleague Matt was
responsible for co-ordinating all the work of our partner organisations
in Friends of the Earth International, particularly around our
corporate accountability agenda. I think the only other thing
that I would mention is that because we are an international network,
consisting of more groups from the south than from the north,
we brought a unique perspective for an environmental organisation
to the discussions at Johannesburg, and I am happy to elaborate
on that if you would like.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed.
Mr Thomas
77. Can we start perhaps with Friends of the
Earth, because I think you gave evidence to this Committee when
we did the Government preparations for the Summit, and just to
go back to something you said at the time, I think, Mr Phillips,
when you said that you hoped the Summit would be a turning-point
for the world: was it?
(Mr Phillips) A u-turning-point. It was
a bitter disappointment and, frankly, from the perspective of
a lot of the groups in our confederation, particularly from the
global south, they felt it was a betrayal. They felt that a lot
of people in the south had very high expectations of what world
leaders coming together to discuss such important issues could
deliver. This was billed as the biggest ever Summit, more world
leaders than ever before attended a major UN Summit, and yet those
people could only agree such a weak set of specific commitments,
or a short number of specific commitments, and such a large number
of general, vague commitments, some of which even appear to be
climbing back from previous commitments made. So I think that
is why bitter disappointment was the reaction that people had.
Was it a turning-point; well, overall, it probably did not go
back from Rio, but it did not really advance us any further, and
some of the other horses in the global race, like the free trade
agenda that has been coming out through the WTO process, were
actually advanced through this process, which might mean that
really it was put back substantially.
78. Can I ask the RSPB to comment as well, particularly
in the light of the projects you mentioned you took to Johannesburg?
(Dr Jefferiss) I think how you evaluate the outcome
of Johannesburg depends on your starting-point and expectations.
I think most expectations amongst environmental groups, and certainly
the RSPB, were that it would identify a blueprint for action on
commitments already made, rather than necessarily make new commitments.
And I think that, to the extent that there were very few specific
actions identified and that some existing commitments actually
came under pressure and that there were really very few new commitments,
it should be regarded as a failure. It was certainly a missed
opportunity and certainly wholly inadequate to the challenge that
we face; so, yes. On the other hand, I think, from a practical
point of view, midway through Johannesburg itself, it looked entirely
possible that it would be a u-turn backwards, and that it ended
up not being quite that bad I think was a source of some relief
for those who were present. But that is rather damning it with
faint praise, I think.
79. Could I just ask any of you to elaborate
further; there has been mention that, in fact, in some respects
the Summit was a backward step, biodiversity targets possibly,
whether the water targets actually take things forward? We knew
before the Summit that many governments were bilaterally adopting
certain positions, they could have happened anyway; so would you
look at the whole Summit, as you said, Mr Phillips, it was the
biggest ever event of this kind, was it actually progress at all,
in any fields?
(Mr Phillips) I think I would just echo Paul's comment,
that there were some extremely damaging things which were fought
off. So, for example, there was a very strong push from a number
of governments to make previous multilateral environmental agreements,
like the Biosafety Protocol, CITES, and so on, compliant with
WTO rules, and essentially subservient to WTO rules. So if, for
example, it contradicted the WTO Dispute Panel then the need to
protect big-leaf mahogany would come second.
Chairman
|
