corporations are behind earth summit

national | miscellaneous | news report

Monday August 26, 2002 15:00

by James Maloney - no organisation

jmalon at mail dot com

The corporate wreckers are at it again! Boycott ESSO!

The corporate wreckers are at it again!

"The least important global environmental issue is potential global
warming, and we hope that your negotiators at Johannesburg can keep it
off the table and out of the spotlight."
- Excerpt from a letter sent to George W. Bush by a group of Exxon
Mobil
funded lobbyists.

As if dodging out of the Kyoto treaty, supporting rabid fossil fuel
consumption, and making money at the expense of all forms of life on
earth weren't enough to keep them busy, it now seems that some of the
big
business lapdogs in Washington have taken it upon themselves to
sabotage
the upcoming Earth Summit in Johannesburg. In a letter to George W.
recently leaked to the media by Friends of the Earth, thirty-one
lobbyists - many funded by Exxon Mobil - told Bush that "we applaud
your
decision not to attend the Summit in person . the Johannesburg Summit
will provide a global media stage for many of the most irresponsible
and
destructive elements involved in environmental issues. Your presence
would only help to publicise and make more credible various
anti-freedom,
anti-people, anti-globalisation, and anti-Western agendas."

So let's get this straight-this lot doesn't want Bush to attend the
conference because they think it's been taken over by irresponsible and
destructive tree-huggers who, unlike them, wouldn't sell their own
grandmothers to make a buck. They're upset because they think the Earth
Summit is actually going to be a meeting of concerned
environmentalists,
gathering to discuss what can be done about the impending ecological
disaster brought on by capitalism and free trade. They think the Summit
is a threat to all the things they hold dear-greed, gain, and
globalisation. But for once, dear readers, the joke's on the corporate
whores. They needn't bother sabotaging the conference because it's
already been sabotaged by their favourite things-multinational greed,
corporate gain, and the push for globalisation at any cost.

If the American big business butt kissers would simply pause a moment
to
review some of the people who are planning to attend the Summit, they'd
quickly realise they have nothing to fear. Just for kicks, let's look
at
some of Blair's hand-picked delegates. Blair's posse contains a number
of
his Big Business cronies including Bill Alexander, chief executive of
Thames Water. The largest water company in the UK, Thames Water has
been
prosecuted for pollution over 20 times since 1996. Just two days after
it
was announced that Thames Water would become an official defender of
the
global environment in Johannesburg, its parent company, RWE, threatened
to cancel the creation of 4,000 new jobs unless the European commission
dropped its plans to impose stricter controls on carbon dioxide
emissions. During the Summit, Bill Alexander will be making a speech
outlining how private water companies can make immense contributions to
environmental and humanitarian interests. Try telling that to the
hundreds of South Africans who contracted cholera from drinking
polluted
river water after their unaffordable privatised water was cut off (See
Schnews 368).

Chris Fay, another of Blair's prime choices, is not only a
non-executive
director of Anglo America, another of the world's mining giants, but
he's
also a director of British Airways and was formerly the chairman of
Shell-mining, aviation, and oil being three of the most sustainable
industries, of course. This is a particularly sensitive choice on
Blair's
part, as many South African communities are currently involved in
seeking
compensation from Shell and BP following leaks from an oil refinery.
Fay
is also a director of Weir Group Plc., whose subsidiary, Weir Pumps,
has
been implicated in human rights abuses and genocide in Sudan.

And last, but certainly not least on Blair's stunning list of
eco-warriors, is Sir Robert Wilson, executive chairman of mining
company
Rio Tinto. As the world's largest mining conglomerate, Rio Tinto has
destroyed ecosystems the world over and is currently the focus of one
of
Australia's highest profile environmental rows ever. The company's
plans
to mine uranium in one of the planet's most valuable wildlife sites -
Kakadu National Park, a World Heritage Site - has sparked protests that
have led to more than 500 arrests.

Speaking sensitively about environmental issues in underdeveloped
countries, Hugh Leggat, a Rio Tinto spokeman, has remarked: "When you
get
there, you can find the locals have chopped all the trees down. So
perhaps it would be advantageous to allow in a mining firm which could
then in return promise to do regeneration work." Cross your heart and
hope to die, Mr. Leggat? But, as Leggatt has pointed out, "We are
already
just about the most regulated industry in the world." Apparently he
doesn't remember his company's brilliant track record in Bougainville.

Deadbeat Delagates

With a group of delegates like this, one might wonder just what kind of
an environmental conference Blair's going to? But at the heart of
Blair's
seemingly contradictory delegate choices lurks his pet project -
public-private partnerships. He, along with many other Western
governments, seems to think that by inviting reckless corporations to
the
party and allowing them to control things like water, energy, and
forests, they will then start to behave sensibly, protect these crucial
resources, and sustainable development will naturally follow.

But the craziest part is this - even if corporations weren't in the
thick
of the decision-making process, it would still be a bogus summit. Why?
Because none of the agreements that the involved parties sign will be
legally binding. Legal regulations (covering such issues as human
rights
and the environment) have been dropped in favour of voluntary codes.
The
draft plan now calls only for the "promotion of corporate
accountability
and responsibility and the exchange of best practices." Believing in
the
actual existence of "corporate accountability and responsibility," the
powers that be have decided that voluntary self-regulation is all
that's
needed to fix the environmental problems caused by free trade. As
George
Monbiot says, "To defend the world from the destruction brokered by
multinational capital, governments will tie a ribbon round it and hand
it
to multinational capital."