Earth Summit Deal Snagged on Women's Rights

Tue Sep 3, 8:23 AM ET
By David Clarke

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Earth Summit negotiators struggled to end a dispute over women's rights on Tuesday to complete a plan to slash poverty and safeguard the planet already denounced by environmentalists as too bland.
But in a move likely to please greens, Russia told the conference it expected to ratify the Kyoto pact on global warming ( news - web sites) soon, which would virtually ensure its implementation.

After months of preparation and more than a week of haggling, 10 words proposed by Canada in a bid to prevent female circumcision and to safeguard abortion rights stood in the way of a global deal on the penultimate day of the giant conference.

Canada wanted to add: "and in conformity with all human rights and fundamental freedoms" to a paragraph on strengthening women's healthcare to try to prevent governments from arguing that religious and cultural practices were paramount.

"If it's not (included) the Johannesburg text will be a very bad day for women," Mary Robinson, U.N. human rights chief, said as dozens of world leaders made speeches at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

South Africa and the European Union ( news - web sites) back Canada in talks likely to last until late on Tuesday.

"Women's rights are human rights," Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said.
A group of women demonstrated in front of the conference hall for the addition of the words to a sweeping blueprint for halving poverty by 2015 by fighting AIDS ( news - web sites), slowing global warming and deforestation and bolstering fish stocks.

RUSSIA, CHINA BACK KYOTO
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Moscow may ratify the Kyoto Protocol ( news - web sites) on limiting global warming this year.

Russian ratification would, due a complex weighting system, virtually ensure the treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be implemented despite its rejection by the biggest air polluter, the United States.

And China, the world's second biggest polluter, said it had symbolically ratified the deal.

Although not bound by Kyoto because it is a developing country, China's Premier Zhu Rongji told delegates at the summit China had ratified the pact.

Ratification of Kyoto might appease environmentalists angry over an energy deal that agreed to a "substantial increase" in the use of renewable energy like solar and wind power, but stopped short of setting any clear global targets.

BUSH ABSENT
President Bush ( news - web sites) is among the few world leaders not to attend the summit of 21,000 delegates and will send Secretary of State Colin Powell ( news - web sites) to make a speech on Wednesday, by which time most world leaders will have left.

The action plan meant to crown the 10-day World Summit on Sustainable Development has fallen far short of the ambitious blueprint envisioned by many governments and green groups.

"End of term report -- Not satisfactory: must do better" said environmental group Friends of the Earth ( news - web sites).
Summit Secretary-General Nitin Desai defended the summit, saying it had fixed targets from rescuing fish stocks to halving the proportion of people who lack sanitation by 2015.

According to the U.N. 2002 Human Development Report, 1.1 billion people -- almost a fifth of humanity -- lacked access to safe drinking water in 2000.

"We have an action plan and we have targets and timetables," Desai told a news conference.

The biggest hurdle facing the accord on Tuesday was removed when the EU dropped insistence on setting targets to boost the use of renewable energy sources, like solar and wind power, in a victory for the United States and OPEC ( news - web sites) oil-exporting states.

Despite condemnation from green groups, Desai said: "I would say this is the strongest mandate on energy that the international system has received."

Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, whose country is the third-largest oil exporter in the world but also a major producer of hydroelectricity, said: "We are disappointed that there are no targets."

"The Americans, Saudis and Japanese have got what they wanted...It's worse than we could have imagined," Steve Sawyer, climate policy director of Greenpeace, told Reuters.

Environmentalists have also complained that the trade section of the text failed to highlight the ecological and social costs of globalization.

The question of how binding the final agreement is depends on a political declaration that also needs to be hammered out.
South African papers splashed Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe blasting British Prime Minister Tony Blair ( news - web sites) for meddling in the former British colony's affairs, while clashes between police and Palestinian protesters also featured widely.