By Blessing Manale
Today marks 22 years since world leaders gathered in Johannesburg and adopted the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI) and the Johannesburg Declaration. That momentous occasion on September 4, 2002, was the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD).
It was the Johannesburg Summit which put sustainable development at the centre of the international agenda and at the outset called for “global partnership to achieve the objectives of sustainable development” and “reinvigorate the global commitment to a North-South partnership”.
Johannesburg called for a higher level of international solidarity and co-operation and correctly reaffirmed sustainable development as a central element of the global action against poverty and the protection of the environment with linkages between poverty, the environment, and economic prosperity.
Embracing the theme of “People, Planet and Prosperity”, world leaders were urged to act together to foster poverty eradication, human development, and environmental protection.
We recall the declaration of the WSSD, which stated that “from the African continent, the cradle of humankind, we solemnly pledge to the peoples of the world and the generations that will surely inherit this Earth that we are determined to ensure that our collective hope for sustainable development is realised”.
Two decades later, Johannesburg calls for action.
The WSSD took place at the turn of 21st century and hot on the heels of various UN conferences and summits, notably the Millennium Summit, Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development, and World Trade Organization Doha Development Agenda on Trade and Development, among others. What is known is that today, the world is slowly moving towards achieving few, if not none, of those urgent and necessary targets.
With more than 20 years of snail’s-pace progress since WSSD, and subsequent agreements, it is critical that we collectively aim for a significant advance in the multilateral negotiations when we meet in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November this year for the UN Climate Change 29th Conference of Parties (UNFCCC-COP 29).
We have all agreed that if we do not succeed in building a climate change regime that balances adaptation and mitigation, underpinned by the transfer of technology and financial resources, we will place an unmanageable burden on future generations and an irreversible damage to the planet.
To this end, together, we must ensure that we implement a fair, effective, flexible and inclusive climate action plan and under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Kyoto Protocol and the subsequent agreements such as the Durban Accord (COP 17) and the Paris Agreement (COP 21), and we must agree to this as a matter of urgency.
Today, we all understand that the costs of doing nothing about climate change far outweigh those of taking concrete measures to address this challenge. It is clear that delaying action on this matter of climate change will hit poor countries and communities hardest.
Yet the pace of climate change action, investment and finance is out of step with the urgency indicated by science and the daily experiences of those impacted.
A fair and just global regime and playground for climate action
The multilateral process in international climate efforts remains “the world’s vehicle for addressing climate change”. However, multilateralism is currently being outpaced by climate change unless as parties to the UNFCCC and other agreements turn that around.
Though we have different responsibilities, developed countries clearly have an obligation to take the lead. We all have a common duty to do more and act within our respective capabilities and our national circumstances.
Indeed, even as we sit on numerous agreements crafted over decades on the important programmes that should bring a better life to billions of the poor, the rich and the powerful have consistently sought to ensure that whatever happens, the existing power relations are not altered and therefore the status quo remains.
Accordingly, the skewed distribution of power in the world, political, economic, military, technological and social, replicates itself in multilateral institutions, much to the disadvantage of the majority of the poor people of the world.
Together, rich, and poor, developed and developing, North and South, can and must deeply hold hands and address the challenges of climate change and sustainable development; work together to defeat poverty and underdevelopment; and ensure that every human being is saved from the indecencies and humiliations of global poverty.
To meet these challenges, we need multilateralism to evolve and to be more inclusive. In Johannesburg, we entered into and renewed a solemn pact with future unborn generations not to destroy the Earth. Twenty-two years later, the poor watch and wait to see whether hunger, disease and global warming will be tackled with the same vigour displayed in the trade, technology and the wars for political power and dominance and at all fronts.
Blessing Manale is the Executive: Consensus Building and Communications, Presidential Climate Commission.
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