Battling For Fairness

The issue of tackling poverty without causing further environmental destruction has caused the largest North-South rift so far at the negotiations in Johannesburg.

Developing countries are calling for more aid commitments and debt relief from the industrialized West. According to Oxfam International's policy advisor Penny Fowler, they are also urging western nations to drop their agricultural subsidies and tariffs that prevent them from accessing western markets.

Trade is one of the most critical - and contentious - issues with industrialized nations at the summit, says Fowler. "We want to see them committing to ending their unfair trade policies. In particular, to stop putting pressure on developing countries to rapidly liberalize their economies in a way that doesn't take account of the impact on poor people."

No progress without change

Developed countries are currently pushing these policies, she says. "At the same time, they're hypocritically maintaining high levels of protection of their own economies and very high levels of subsidies to their own agricultural producers, for example, by dumping their agricultural surpluses on world markets."

This had devastating impacts on the livelihoods of poor farmers in developing countries. "Unless those policies are changed, it's very hard to see how this summit will make progress on promoting sustainable development," says Fowler.

Although Oxfam and other non-governmental organizations are busy spreading the word to delegates meeting in the marble-lined conference halls of Sandton Convention Center, the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the sessions behind closed doors. Both the European Union and the United States are opposed to any new aid initiatives for developing nations, arguing that they want to stick to the proposals made in March at the International Conference for Development Financing in Monterrey, Mexico.

Valuable resources are necessary

Green groups have been criticized of focusing too much on environmental issues and preventing the world's poor from having the same access to resources, such as energy and water. But Gordon Shepherd, director of WWF International's policy program, says renewable energy is a sustainable alternative.

"Poor people are the ones who will suffer the most from climate change," says Shepherd. "There are a large number of people not getting energy who need it." In his opinion, the renewable aspects need to be stressed at the summit. "That is the way forward and the biodiversity and freshwater systems will suffer from climate change in the same way as people will, so the two are inextricably linked."

Environment groups in Johannesburg are critical of the industrial countries' argument that poverty can only be alleviated through economic growth and private investment. They want tighter controls and more corporate accountability. This issue is certain to dominate discussions over the next week.