If We Lag on Environment, Don’t Blame It on Rio : Despite doomsday rhetoric on some issues, there are reasons to be hopeful

Was the Earth Summit, just concluded in Rio de Janeiro, a success or a failure? Will the 12 days of intense negotiations, speeches, exhibits and demonstrations help redirect the planet from continued environmental degradation toward “sustainable growth?” Between the hyperbole and the portents of doom, there is room for some very cautious optimism about Earth’s fate.

The big story, of course, was about what was not accomplished at Rio: Funds not pledged, limits not set, and treaties watered down or not signed. The 7,000 delegates to this historic international meeting had hopes of concluding constructive agreements that would bind the world’s rich and poor nations to curb global warming, deforestation, desertification and water pollution. Not surprisingly, that overly ambitious agenda was not realized.

What did happen is that, by the meeting’s end, a recalcitrant and recession-spooked United States stood apart, isolated and chastized by the world’s major industrial powers who do not regard sound environmental practices as incompatible with economic growth. President Bush, who continues to insist he has a “great environmental record,” is angry and hurt. White House spokesmen, sensitive to negative election-year fallout from U.S. intransigence at Rio, lashed out at our allies, specifically Japan and Germany, for signing the conference’s major accords just to be “politically correct.” These nations “forget what the record is, (they) just blame the United States.”

But the U.S. record at Rio is disappointing:

Although the United States is the largest single source of gases that contribute to the global “greenhouse effect,” the Administration succeeded in diluting the summit’s global warming convention by insisting upon the elimination of specific limits or targets for the reduction of carbon dioxide from the final draft.

It also refused to sign a treaty, agreed to by 100 nations, to help preserve the world’s plants, animals and natural resources. Despite valiant efforts by European nations and by William K. Reilly, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, to define common ground for the United States on this treaty, the Administration remains opposed.

Against this backdrop, the President’s proposal to increase funding for Third World forest preservation struck many of our allies as cynical. Applause at home for this proposal was muted as well because of the Administration’s recent efforts to undercut protection for old-growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.

The Administration’s posture at Rio--and at home--reflects shortsighted thinking. To cast environmental issues as necessarily imposing a decision “for” jobs or “for” the environment is to impose a false choice. Many of our allies, as well as successful business leaders abroad, see another paradigm. The environment, argues summit participant Stephan Schmidheiny, a Swiss industrialist and one of the richest men in Europe, represents a huge business opportunity. Business people must be at the forefront of environmental thinking, he believes, instead of being on the defensive.

Being at the forefront means preserving forests because they are breeding grounds for plants that can provide clues to wonder drugs. It means preserving forests because their trees and plants soak up carbon dioxide, reducing the need for industrial fixes and because erosion and ground and water pollution occur without those trees, problems that are costly to remedy. It also means recognizing that bio-remediation and “clean technology” already represent major business opportunities for American firms and will become even bigger opportunities in the future.

But despite the disappointments, last week’s summit is hopeful: For the first time ever, more than 110 heads of state met to discuss environmental concerns, elevating those issues to the status of trade or arms control. More important, they promise to continue the dialogue. And although some of the summit’s non-binding declarations of concern and intent sound like platitudes, “once they are around for awhile,” said one environmental lawyer, “they are less like platitudes and more like law.”