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World Politics, Blame and the Environment
by Brian Risman, Publisher, www thelawjournal co uk - 25 August 2002
Page 5 of 7
Another aspect about heavy industry in the Third World is that the pollution scenario in these countries is hauntingly similar to that of Industrial Revolution England. It may be that these countries are at the stage where the West was a couple of centuries ago. Therefore, the issue of ecology also includes aspects of economic development.
Faced with these growing ecological problems, the world has agreed in recent years to discuss these issues in summits. Not only discuss, but also come up with an action plan. However, these action plans seem to never occur. The previous Sustainable Development summit in Brazil about ten years ago produced great plans -- but little subsequent action. The Kyoto global warming accords have run into political trouble in several Western countries due to certain, politically explosive job losses that would result from their implementation.
What is the problem? First, these summits tend to be public relations exhibitions. Leaders want to be seen as concerned. However, the second problem is that these summits -- and indeed every international meeting -- becomes a forum for political agendas and politics far removed from the issue at hand. Witness the scientific summit on earthquake research which was disrupted by a resolution submitted by Arab states, condemning 'the Zionist earthquake against the Palestinians'. What did that resolution have to do with scientific research? Nothing. Wherever you stand on the Middle East issues, there is no doubt that resolutions of this nature only serve to disrupt any constructive progress on summit agendas. Yet these summits continue to be disrupted by knee-jerk attacks on Israel and Jews -- witness the Durban summit not so long ago whose potential good work was totally disrupted by resolutions promoting 'Zionism is racism', and where Jewish delegates from around the world were physically attacked on the street. That summit was a failure simply because of this political manipulation. I suppose that this summit will blame all ecological problems on Israel, disrupting any constructive work.
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