Extracts from a speech by Luiz inacio Lula da Siva, President of the Brazilian Workers' Party to the alternative 'Global Forum' held in Rio on June 2. Roots of crisis THE DEGRADATION of the environment which is today threatening our planet is the expression of the values of a society which commercialises relations between men and women, which engenders social injustice and the destructon of our natural and historic inheritance. *The ecological crisis that humanity is now experiencing and which threatens its future is the result of conceptions of economic and productive development, shared both by capitalism and bureaucratic state socialism*. Indigenous peoples *THE FACT that the problems of the environment have an International character does not exempt a goverment from proposing a project for national development, to be decided democratically by the nation, which contains an environmental dimension. it is insufficient to create reservations for the indigenous peoples. areas for extraction or units for the protection of nature without a policy for the democratisation of land cernership - a genuine agranan reform - and without social policies to support the traditional populations of these zones. The neo-iberal policies of free exchange have, for example, dealt a hard blow to the rubber producers of Amazonia, forced to leave their home in order to survive. *It doesn't do much good for a government lo delight themselves with expressions such as 'sustainable development if the populations of Amazonia and other regions are abandoned in sectors where their relationship with the surrounding areas exposes them to permanent No development is conceivable it, in order to pay off the exteral debt risks. and obey the orders for structural adjustment demanded by the informational bodies, a government dismandes housing and hosth programmes and abolishes public services, particularly for control of the environment." Rhetoric and reality WHAT IS THE ecological rhetoric of a government or the green labels of businesses worth if the working population lives, in the fioids and factories, in a hell created by industrial pollution and toxic emissions, or it it is forced to consume thousands of tons of products harmful to health thrown into the atmosphere or the water, without there being the sightest social control over this extortion. The tadle of the great powers is to emply the debate of these themes whilst the eyes of the world are on Rio and the pressure of the ecologists is being strongly foll, in order to advance solutions of orivatisation and to use the external debt an an instrument for blackmail."
New model needed *THE WORKERS' PARTY considers that the debates at Rio, particularty the parallel Forum, can represent a decisive step for the develoment for humanily.
pollute the atmosphere, drastically change the living conditions of milions of beings and endanger the more and more scarce water in itself, but to throw up the bases for a new model of economic development which radically alters the existing structures of production and which can be capable of reconciling growth, social justice and respect lor the environment JNi and the suppression of the guardianship exercised over *it is of prime importance that we pursue a policy of peace, disarmament, demilitarisation of the world, which can only be into their daily struggles.
June 27, 1992 . No. 24 reinforcing of a universal consciousness in favour of a new model of *We do not subscribe to the polides of governments or the complicity of these govemments with those who devastate the soil of our planet, *The challenge which laces all ecologists and genuine socialists is not simply to formulate a policy for protection, an enormous enough task This new model demands a radical transformation of world poltics, a genuine democratisation of international institutions (starting with the humanity by the MF, the World Bank, the G7 and such organisations. achieved by an increasing intervention of clizens, men and wornen, Not much on offer for those that need it most Austrian marxist HERMANN DWORCZAK examines the predictably feeble outcome of the Earth Summit in Rio. THE BENEFITS OF the big show in Rio bore no relation to its cost. Essential questions such as the world economic order were not on the official agenda.
The Bishop of the Brazilian See of Xingu Erwin Krautler concluded that:
"The developed countries will go on as before. Neither the serfously discussed Prices was debt burden nor the problem ot low raw material The gross output of texts was certainly impressive, but their content much less so. • The 900-page all-embracing Agenda 21, which is to show us the ecological path into the 215t was considerably watered down. vexed question of financing the relevant measures by dustrialised countries covered by the formula "0.7 per cent as soon as possible". At the moment they make only 0.3 per cent of their GNP available. • The Rio Declaration gives 27 arid principles. Some feel of how vacuous they are comes from principle number three, which calls us to rally to a worldwide social partnership "All states and peoples should work together to eliminate ana income ineForestry keeps up the pace on -mongering: of the the provision of financial aid from the North not signed by the United States. • The Climate Convention is so wholly toothless George Bush felt able to sign it.
Electioneering
Bush's presence in Rio had of course nothing to do with the environment and everything to forthcoming American presidential elections.
He acted like a bull in a china shop. ine script for his thundering was provided by the ultra-conserrative Heritage Foundation think tank. The US negotiators at Rio were given a rule of thumb, which was to 'Avoid any detailed plans which tie us down to a definite reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases within a definite timespan.
Third World countries must themselves create enough wealth to finance their own environmental programmes.
Delegations which pressed for a more serious climate convention were put through the diplomatic wringer. delegate from Iceland said that US pressure on our country was stronger than in the turmoil after the Gulf War.
While the USA established itself at Rio as the world's number one anti ecological cos re the 'ecological awareness' capitalist industrialised countries is - for all their rhetoric - hardly more developed.
Much noise has been made of the stated intention of countries such as Austria, Switzerland, the EC and Japan to bring down their greenhouse gas emissions to the 1990 level by the year 2000.
In fact to meet the emergency a much bister teaucaon is it quired: but in any case the promised undertaking is built
Bolivian peasant march protests over-exploitation •Ecology feature