First Planetary Meeting of Green Parties
Río de Janeiro, Brazil
May 30th-31st, 1992
FINAL STATEMENT OF THE FIRST EARTH MEETING OF
GREENS IN RIO DE JANEIRO
31 May 1992
"Experience teaches us that governments are only moved to take
environmental problems seriously when people vote for environmental
political parties."
The representatives of GREEN PARTIES, gathered here from all
corners of the world on the eve of the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED), express a rich variety of
contrasting cultures and experiences. We come from both the North
and the South of the planet, whose peoples are increasingly being set
against each other by deepening social and ecological crisis. The world
Greens condemn all forms of racism and ethnocentrism that divide
human beings, generate wars and justify the discrimination, the
exploitation and sometimes the extermination of peoples. As heirs of the
fight for equality, one of the most important banners of the history of
mankind, we call for all peoples to live together in peace. We thus
appeal to the peoples of all the world, especially those involved in wars
and ethical conflicts, to put down their weapons and let the XXIst century
be born under the sign of respect for ethnic, cultural, sexual and other
differences.
1. A GLOBAL STATE OF EMERGENCY
The conditions for life on earth are deteriorating at an ever- faster pace.
a) GLOBAL WARMING, POLLUTION, LOSS OF HUMAN HABITAT
Global warming threatens human habitat and food sources. The seven
hottest summers in 150 years occurred between 1977 and 1991.
Scientists forecast a global temperature increase of between three and
six degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. At current rates, the volume of
" greenhouse gas" emissions will double by 2025.
The United Nations Program for the Environment (UNEP) has forecast
that sea level will rise an average 6 mm per year over the next century,
a phenomenon which threatens the homes of hundreds of millions of
people all over the world. For islands, coastal areas and river deltas, the
threat of flooding is becoming increasingly dramatic.
Every year, over 17 billion hectares of tropical and temperate forests are
destroyed, an area equivalent to that of Spain. Over 50,000 animal and
plant species are dying out in the world's tropical forests each year.
Desertification is progressing at an alarming pace. The drinking water of
some 1.2 billion people in the world is polluted. The ozone layer is
deteriorating both in the polar region and in temperate zones.
Meanwhile, the unconstrained use of fossil fuels and other resources is
exhausting stocks and polluting air, land and water, while man-made
radiation from the nuclear industry poses yet another threat to life on
earth.
b) NORTHERN OVER-CONSUMPTION OF SOUTHERN RESOURCES
Industrialized countries of the North account for 80% of the world's
consumption of resources and 80% of global environmental destruction.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions amount to 20 tons annually per capita
in North America, compared to 2 tons in Brazil or half a ton per year in
Nigeria. Over the past 150 years, the industrialized countries of the
North have decisively contributed to air pollution through unlimited
consumption of fossil fuels. Today the industrialized countries continue
unchecked to import underpriced raw materials from the South, including
tropical timber that is depleting the rain forests. In exchange, the North
accounts for 85% of toxic waste exports. The EC alone, with 6% of the
world's population, is responsible for 15% of CO2 emissions, 30% of
chlorofluorocarbon (CFCs) emissions and 70% of pesticide exports. The
exchange between North and South is radically unbalanced both
quantitatively and qualitatively.
c) DEEPENING POVERTY
Over 77% of the world population receives only 15% of the total revenue
produced in the world; a fifth of the world population survives with less
than a dollar a day; one child out of three suffers from malnutrition; and
three million die each year from diseases that could be easily avoided
by means of prevention.
The economic and social abyss continues to grow between North and
South. Debt servicing has led to an overall transfer of wealth from the
poor Southern countries to the rich Northern countries worth some 50
billion dollars each year. The North must recognize that it is simply
impossible to demand overriding concern for environmental
conservation from people who do not even have enough to eat.
d) FOOD PRODUCTION IN CRISIS
Natural systems that have endured for millennia are breaking down.
Between 1985 and 1989 (last available figures), food production per
capita fell in 94 countries. The global fish catch fell in 1990 for the first
time in 20 years. Human numbers and impact have grown so large that
they are eroding the natural systems that support life. The extinction
rate of natural species is currently a thousand times greater than normal.
e) POPULATION INCREASE
World population is now 5.4 billion. According to United Nations
estimates, world population will more than double to reach 13 billion by
21 00. Such a population growth will make environmental and social
problems much harder to solve.
f) NEEDED: A NEW DEVELOPMENT MODEL
The Green Parties meeting in Rio are obliged to sound the alarm in very
strong terms: Only a radical reversal of trends can lay the foundations
for life in the coming millennium. Otherwise we face a cascade of partly
man-made "natural" catastrophes, ruined environments, migratory flows
of whole populations, and the growing political threat of a new
authoritarian and fascist movements proclaiming "ecological" ideology.
The economic model of growth, geared toward more and more large-
scale industrial transformation, has reached a point of self- destruction
at the very moment when it seems to have triumphed throughout the
world. It is not only destroying the natural bases of human economic
activity, it is creating intolerable social tensions and inequalities. This
model must be replaced by a new model of qualitative development
constructing a humanized environment for both present and future
generations.
2. AN APPEAL TO THE CONVENING DELEGATIONS OF UNCED.
a) A LOOMING FAILURE
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED) offered an historic opportunity to embark on a new era of
planetary coexistence and to take the first steps toward reconversion of
the global economic and ecological order. The Rio meeting marks a
new level in worldwide consciousness of the global ecological crisis and
of the need to act. However, all signs point to failure, with dramatic
consequences for the environment and peoples of the earth. The
world's leading governments, each shifting blame to the others, have
already agreed to a sham summit, with sham agreements unable to
achieve the purposes all proclaim in a chorus of empty good intentions.
AGENDA 21 will not have the funds or institutional structures for its
implementation. The draft treaty on climate change contains no precise
target, no timetable, no mechanisms for implementation. The
negotiations on biodiversity have produced nothing substantial, and
those on tropical forest have not even begun. The "Earth Summit" risks
producing only empty words of concern for the environment for use at
home by politicians seeking popularity.
The basic reason for this deplorable failure of world responsibility is the
servility of today's political leaders to an ideology of 'progress' based on
industrial growth and profit, inherited from the past century, which is no
longer viable. Indeed, it has become lethal.
b) A LAST-MINUTE APPEAL
The representatives of the world's Green parties meeting in Rio launch a
last-minute appeal to the heads of state and government gathering in
Rio -- especially those of the rich industrialized countries of the North,
which in the last five hundred years have incurred an ecological debt
toward the South -- to assume their historic responsibility to our planet
Earth and its inhabitants.
The Greens are convinced that this is possible: measures could be taken
by the major OECD countries that would mark a significant step in the
right direction, and that -- far from ruining their economies -- would help
prepare them for the only viable economic development of the next
century. The rich countries have the means to take steps away from the
wasteful development model they have imposed on the rest of the world
-- with the active complicity of ruling groups in Southern countries -- and
towards a new ecological development that would enable the peoples of
the South to contribute fully, in accordance with their own needs and
cultures.
c) THE FIRST NECESSARY STEP: A TAX ON ENERGY
The International Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that in
order to stabilize the world climate, C02 emissions have to be reduced
60% to 80% by the year 2030. The first step would have to be for the
OECD countries to reduce their C02 emissions by 20% by 2000, while at
the same time 'transitional" (ex-communist) countries would have to
stabilize their emissions at the 1990 level and developing countries limit
the increase of their emissions to 33% of the 1990 level.
To help accomplish this, and to raise the necessary funds to promote
renewable energy sources and energy savings not only in their own
countries but also in the East and the South, a tax must be levied on the
consumption of non-renewable energies and C02 emissions in OECD
countries. Greens strongly urge each OECD government to go ahead
unilaterally if necessary with the energy tax, while rapidly phasing out
nuclear power.
Studies show that the energy tax is an entirely realistic measure,
particularly easy to introduce at a moment when energy prices are lower
than they were before the 1973 oil crisis. The problem lies in the
insufficient political will of the main OECD countries, starting with the
Bush administration in the United States. The European Community,
which could and should have taken the lead, instead uses the United
States attitude as an excuse to do nothing.
We urge all OECD countries, especially the European Community, the
United States and Japan, to reconsider their attitude before it is too late.
d) AN INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK TO ADMINISTER A NEW GLOBAL FUND
To provide the necessary institutional framework for worldwide
ecologically sustainable development, a new United Nations commission
should be set up, directly elected by the UN General Assembly and
subject to independent judiciary control. Its mandate should be to
oversee implementation of AGENDA 21, take annual reports from all
countries on their progress toward sustainability, and develop a
permanent process of cooperation with NGOs.
This new institution should be given the necessary financial means. A
" Green Fund" of $125 billion per year was deemed necessary during the
last UNCED Prepcom. This could be created from a percentage of the
environmental taxes collected in OECD countries combined with an
increase in widely promised official development aid and a share of not
more than 10% of the "peace dividend" resulting from reduced military
expenditures.
e) A BASIC PROGRAM FOR SURVIVAL
In development aid, priority should be given to promoting girls' and
women's access to education, property and political participation. Pro-
natalist policies in over-consuming Northern countries are incompatible
with sustainable development and should be ended. Women and men
in all countries should have free access to family planning. Greens
recognize that the way to population limitation is social justice.
No international climate accord should fail to call for an immediate ban
on CFCs and all other ozone layer depleting substances.
Desertification must be officially recognized as a priority problem, and a
special fund established to help threatened populations take measures
to protect their environments.
To save the world's forests, Greens call for a total global moratorium on
import and export of timber from rain forests as well as northern and
temperate zone forests, until ecologically sound methods of growing and
harvesting timber ensured.
The 'war on drugs' must not be used as yet another pretext for military
buildups and operations to solve problems that require social and
economic solutions.
Free access to genetic resources must be maintained (meaning no
patents on life), while institutions and private firms using genetic
resources for commercial purposes must set up a worldwide fund for
recovery and preservation of the genetic resources of the South.
In addition, Greens call on governments to reach the necessary
agreement on three points not taken into account by Agenda 21:
(1) an agreement banning all kinds of waste exports,
(2) a ban on nuclear testing,
(3) measures to lift the burden of debt from developing countries. The
debts of the 47 poorest countries must be canceled. The debts of
intermediate countries should also be canceled once the fundamental
rights of nature and humankind are ensured so as to make sure that
cancellation does not merely benefit the local elites who profited from
the debt in the first place.
Greens note that all these recommended measures will be inadequate
without basic changes in economic policy. Economic mechanisms --
fiscal and other -- must incorporate ecological and social costs into
prices, favor the introduction of ecologically sustainable products,
technologies and production methods, and strengthen their
competitiveness. GATT, the World Bank and the IMF have to be
democratized and subjected to environmental priorities, and redirected
away from deregulation of the world economy.
f) ONE SURE CONCLUSION
Greens protest the visible transformation of the Rio Earth Summit into a
military operation subjecting Rio to a state of siege. UNCED, originally
conceived as a gathering of government leaders to protect the Earth's
environment, is being turned into a military exercise to protect the
government leaders. The most tangible result in Rio itself stands to be
massive traffic jams and a nasty reminder of recent military dictatorship.
Regardless of the outcome of the UNCED in Rio, one thing is already
clear. The Green Parties, NGOs and various citizens' initiatives aimed
at saving the Earth and creating fair and environmentally sustainable
living conditions must step up their efforts. The failure of current
political leaders to assume their responsibilities makes our own
responsibility that much greater.
3. THE GREEN PARTIES AND THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
a) Our presence in Rio, as members of the only new international
political family since World War II, expresses our determination to
promote political ecology and green politics in both North and South.
The Green political movement must provide vision to unite people
around the world in solving environmental and social problems.
b) The growing tensions, accompanying the worsening of environmental
problems, constitute a threat to democracy and fertile ground for eco-
imperialist or eco-authoritarian temptations. We are convinced that
regional organization, combined with inter-regional solidarity, is
necessary to enable people to participate and solve national conflicts
peacefully. Because of our democratic, anti-authoritarian and non-
violent convictions; our absolute condemnation of -- and resolute fight
against -- any social or political exclusion, whether for reasons of race,
sex orientation, faith, social category or other reasons; our concept of
human rights as both civil and social; our commitment to equality
between men and women in representation and decision- making
including our own movements; our will to respect cultural diversity; our
love and respect for all forms of life, the green political movement is a
crucial bulwark against the misuse of ecological crisis and resulting fears
by extreme rightist movements.
c) Our proposals to change the parameters of economic rationality, with
profound conversion of national and international economies beyond
neo-liberal or purely state-control simplifications (without the fear of
relying on regulatory measures), constitute the only variant capable of
meeting today's challenges. Our intention is to put forward, as an
alternative to unrestrained and destructive consumerism, production and
consumption which fully take into account the `limits' imposed by the
social and environmental balance. Blind production must be replaced by
production based on regenerating resources without destruction of the
environment. An alternative economic model should base development
on the potentials of the region and promote its integration. The poor
quantitative and marginalizing development which currently reigns in the
South must be replaced by qualitative and environmentally balanced
development aimed at improving the population's quality of life.
d) Experience teaches us that governments are only moved to take
environmental problems seriously when people vote for environmental
political parties. In countries where environmental policy can count on
the clear and autonomous presence of green parties enjoying public
support, the traditional parties also "dye" themselves green. That is why
the Greens do not limit themselves to electoral perspectives but
constitute a movement involved alongside the NGOs and social
movements in their struggles.
e) Our presence in Rio also symbolizes our firm conviction that green
politics is not a 'luxury' of the rich North but a necessity for the whole
world -- and for the South most of all. The devastating social impact of
a deteriorated environment is much greater in the so-called 'Third World'
or even in Eastern Europe than in the rich countries of the North. In the
infernal triangle between backwardness, poverty and demographic
growth, environmental destruction has an immediate effect on the
inhabitants. Water pollution concerns millions of people. Deteriorated
hygienic conditions expose vast populations to endemic diseases,
epidemics and infections. The effect of global warming threatens in
particular the planet's Southern populations.
f) The presence among us of representatives of green and
environmental parties from such countries as Mexico, French Guyana,
Niger, Tanzania, Brazil, Zaire and Mali, illustrates the growing
environmental awareness of the people in these countries. All the
participants at this first Earth Meeting of Greens have the firm intention
of constituting in the future a unique and powerful political current at
world level. It is no longer enough to 'think globally and act locally'. The
time has come to act globally as well.
g) For this purpose, we have decided to reinforce the links between the
parties here present (including the parties of people without a state) by
selling up in 1992 a Planetary Green Network to maintain a permanent
exchange of information concerning the evolution of our parties and
campaigns, as well as our positions on essential global issues. A
provisional steering committee (geographically balanced and gender
balanced) will be given the responsibility of organizing the Founding
Congress of a Green Planetary Coordination in 1993 and drafting a
proposal for its organization.
h) As first step of the constitution of this network we will promote:
1 - Systematic communication and consultation between us, using new technologies;
2 - Coordinated actions at international levels;
3 - Delegations of representatives to each other's meetings;
4 - Concrete mechanisms to issue common global statements;
5 - Concrete mechanisms to help the creation and the development of new Green Parties:
6 - Constitution of transnational committees on different topics.
SOLIDARITY WITH NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES
We would also like to express our warmth, support and solidarity for NGOs and Global Forum, the indigenous peoples and their World Conference and other initiatives such as the Earth Parliament, the Amazonian village of Voadar, presentation of the Declaration of Morelia of the Group of 100 and the follow-up of the Miami world conference of women and environment from November 1991. "It is no longer enough to 'think globally and act locally'.
