Johannesburg Earth Summit - US Response

[LovetoGiveRoses]

FEATURE STORY

US Set to Commit Significant Resources for Partnerships Toward New Path for Development

Johannesburg, 25 August—The World Summit on Sustainable Development should focus on serious commitments to address poverty, economic growth and environmental stewardship, and the United States says it will commit significant resources, beginning with the Summit, to pursue a new path to sustainable development.

"The Summit is an historic opportunity for the international community to start committing ourselves to result-oriented actions that will really start to make a difference around the world," according to the current head of the US Delegation to the Summit, John Turner, Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.

The US, he said, was bringing commitments from President Bush, along with specific strategies and significant resources to support partnership efforts that will help meet the goal of halving the proportion of people who lack access to clean water, to promote access to clean energy, to address hunger, provide healthcare and protect forests and oceans. He stressed that the initiatives would have a major focus on Africa.

But the resources that the US will commit now, he said, are seen as just a "down payment" for partnerships that will help "build a path to development." The resources include up to $970 million over the next three years for water, which the US expects will mobilize more than $1.6 billion through partnerships; $43 million in 2003 for clean energy that will lead to an additional $400 million in other resources through partnerships; and $90 million in 2003 to help farmers, particularly in Africa. The US has already pledged over $1 billion in 2002 and 2003 to address health issues, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Resources are the key to building this path, he said, and the way to tap the necessary resources to address the problems is through collaborative efforts, or partnerships. "The issues are so big and the resources needed are so great. I don't see another path that has demonstrated as much success as collaborative action."

"I'm pleased to report that there is a lot of excitement from a lot of donors for collaborative efforts," Turner said. He said the US was supporting such initiatives to protect the forests in the Congo River Basin, to protect coral reefs, and to combat marine pollution due to land-based sources. Also included, he said, were efforts to expand access to clean and more efficient energy in developing countries included renewables, and that these efforts could also address climate change.

"Government assistance is important," Turner said, noting that the US had committed itself to the largest increase in official development assistance in its history-a 50 per cent increase-at Monterrey. But with one dollar out of every ten in private hands, Turner said, "We have to engage the private sector. That's one of the keys."

Partnerships are not new, he said, noting that there has been a long history of willing entities coming together with donor and recipient countries and communities to agree on programmes and plans. He cited, as an example, the US commitment of resources to the partnership of governments, NGO, foundations, charities, and pharmaceutical companies that had come together to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic that was devastating southern Africa.

Turner said that NGOs, primarily the major successful international NGOs, have long done business through partnerships. "Those NGOs that are making a difference are expert on coopting partners. They wrote the book on how to do collaborative efforts."

The partnerships need to be accountable, he said. "You can't throttle them. Recipient countries have expectations that have to be met and donor countries have expectations that have to be met. The partners themselves will provide that accountability."

The US, Turner said, has also made a significant commitment to replenish the Global Environment Facility, which he said has been a key source of resources to developing countries.

The new resources announced in the last year, he said, which include the $5 billion increase announced at Monterrey, along with increased funding for the GEF, healthcare, and climate change, is, Turner said, "the beginning of our concentration on the new path we are trying to build."

The Summit, he said, should get beyond concluding with a text containing lofty expectations. "This gathering is an unprecedented historic opportunity to begin a new way of doing business."

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Washington Times - Today.

Bush to Propose $4 Billion in Aid for Africa

Move Comes After President Bows Out of U.N.-Sponsored Summit on Global Development
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 22, 2002; Page A14


The Bush administration, seeking to soften the blow of President Bush's decision to skip a global development meeting starting next week in South Africa, will propose spending more than $4 billion over the next several years to improve health and economic development in Africa, officials said yesterday.

The money, much of it diverted from existing programs, is on top of a separate proposal to provide as much as $5 billion a year to developing countries that adopt sound economic policies and attack corruption. Officials said the new proposals to reduce disease, provide clean water and conserve resources were part of a broader plan to work closely with developing nations to provide the foundation for greater prosperity.

"We've begun a process months before in which we have placed a premium on partnerships; partnerships among governments, among governments and the private sector," Undersecretary of State Paula Dobriansky told reporters at the Foreign Press Center.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will lead the U.S. delegation to the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on Sustainable Development -- though just for the last two days of the 10-day conference -- before heading to Angola and Gabon. Though a major focus of the conference is on seeking ways to reduce global warming, the administration is not bringing any new proposals and apparently does not plan to discuss climate change. Bush infuriated many world leaders last year when he rejected a worldwide treaty negotiated in Kyoto, Japan, setting targets for emissions reductions.

"This summit is about sustainable development," Dobriansky said. "That means we're talking about economic reform, we're talking about environmental stewardship, and we're talking about a social agenda, if you will, issues relevant to the quality of life. It's a combination of all three."

Regarding global warming, Dobriansky added: "We have a common goal and a common objective. Where there are differences is how you most successfully and most effectively achieve that goal."

Democrats were quick to criticize the administration's agenda, saying that it is unclear what programs are losing money to fund this initiative and that, in any case, the administration is all but ignoring the threat posed by global warming.

"What passes for their agenda -- shifting around funds from existing efforts and giving it a new name -- sends a clear signal to the rest of the world: The world's largest polluter isn't interested in finding a solution to global warming," said Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.).

In Johannesburg, Powell will also meet with a number of regional leaders, possibly focusing on the administration's efforts to isolate President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe internationally. Earlier this week, the State Department denounced Mugabe as an illegitimate leader who was worsening a potential famine with his campaign to oust white commercial farmers from their lands.

At preparatory meetings, the United States has clashed with other countries, including European allies, over the draft document to be issued at the conference, especially on issues involving trade, finance and development assistance. Administration officials said they were resisting efforts to cast the problem as a divide that wealthy nations had to bridge with less-developed countries.

The proposals Powell will announce include a Congo Basin Forest Partnership to promote a network of national parks and protected areas. It is tobe funded in part by $60 million of U.S. funds over the next five years, according to administration briefing papers distributed on Capitol Hill. Powell will visit a forest preserve during his stop in Gabon, which recently announced plans to set aside 10 percent of its territory for a national park.

Powell will also announce plans to invest $970 million over three years for a clean-water initiative and to refocus U.S. efforts on reducing hunger by boosting agriculture and trade. An additional $3.3 billion will be devoted to fighting AIDS and infectious diseases over the next two years; about half of that had been previously announced.

David G. Victor, director of the program on energy and sustainable development at Stanford University, said the administration's pronouncements on aiding Africa "on the surface say all the right things." But he said it is still unclear how committed the administration is to making sure the proposals are properly implemented.

"These are not issues that animate this administration," Victor said. "There is an awful lot of suspicion that there is not going to be a lot of follow-through."

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

This is a huge increase in our commitment to foreign aid. I wonder how they'll "control" it so that it gets spent on the programs and people that it's meant for?

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

I guess I'm supposed to say something controversial now.

How about, we've been spending billions of dollars over many years now and it's virtually all gone to waste. How can we send so much money overseas knowing that it will probably be wasted when there's so much work to do here in our schools, communities and in research and development to make a better future for all of us (like research into alternative fuels)?

We're already sending enough food to forestall the starvation concern.

Water wouldn't be such an issue if their population wasn't doubling every few years. Thank goodness for that English small pump that can be deployed easily and cheaply, a great program.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

I'm having fun here playing with myself.

Failures haunt U.N. development summit
Bush isn't coming to the 10-day affair in South Africa, and many delegates are angry about it.

August 27, 2002

By RACHEL L. SWARNS
The New York Times

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Participants from all over the world flocked to the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development wearing flowing African robes, Indian saris and pinstriped suits. They celebrated the spirit of global solidarity and vowed to hammer out a plan to protect rain forests and clean polluted air while helping millions of people escape from poverty.

More than 100 presidents and prime ministers, including most European leaders, will attend this summit meeting to show their commitment to their new pledges. But many here are expressing doubts about the developed nations' sincerity and are especially critical of President George W. Bush, the leader of the world's biggest and most polluting economy, who has decided not to attend.

American officials here Monday said that they would soon announce investments of more than $970 million in projects to provide access to clean water to countries in Africa and other developing nations. They also said that they wanted to focus on offering concrete support for specific projects instead of getting mired in debates about the targets and time frames sought by the developing nations. As the participants gathered in the gleaming convention center here, nearly everyone was haunted by the failures of the past.

Ten years ago, the world's leaders left the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro with an ambitious agenda now mostly remembered by delegates who have gathered here as a string of broken promises and squandered opportunities.

In his opening speech Monday, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa said pointedly that the world had stood by since then and allowed environmental degradation and deepening poverty to threaten the future of the Earth.

Mbeki said leaders had failed to muster the political will to reduce poverty and to protect natural resources despite the promises made in Rio de Janeiro. He urged officials to develop a strong plan during this 10-day meeting to rescue a world increasingly characterized by dying lakes, retreating forests, global warming and desperately poor people.

"Poverty, underdevelopment, inequality within and among countries, together with the worsening global ecological crisis, sum up the dark shadow under which most of the world lives," Mbeki said in his speech. "It is no secret that the global community has, as yet, not demonstrated the will to implement the decisions it has freely adopted.

"We need to take stock of the inertia of the past decade and agree on very clear and practical measures that will help us to deal decisively with all the challenges that we face," he said. "This is the central task of this summit."

The officials here applauded his words. But as the day wore on and negotiators huddled in the ballrooms, it was clear that coming up with a strong and memorable plan would be extremely difficult.

No new treaties or conventions will be signed here. Instead, negotiators are focusing on the link between poverty and environmental degradation and on how to spur growth in poor countries while protecting the environment.

But there are deep disagreements between rich and poor nations about how to achieve those goals.

Poor countries say they need to improve their economies before they will be in a position to protect their natural resources. They want wealthy nations to provide aid to developing countries equal to 0.7 percent of the wealthy nations' gross national products. They also want the wealthy nations to reduce or eliminate tariffs on agricultural goods from poor countries and, by 2015, to reduce by half the number of people who lack access to sanitation.

Officials from the United States and the European Union have refused to make commitments for time frames to eliminate agricultural subsidies, which protect their farmers from foreign competition. "We do not see Johannesburg as a place to have these negotiations," Catherine Day of the European Union said Monday.

The European Union is willing to discuss setting targets for increasing foreign assistance to the poor and for converting to renewable energy sources, which the United States opposes.

"I think goals are important, but they're only lofty rhetoric without the commitment of resources," said John F. Turner, the assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs.

"The opportunity here is for partners to start committing resources in these critical areas to reduce poverty and ensure a more sustainable future," Turner said. "That's what we ought to be focused on."

But officials from developing nations said the wealthy countries were being inflexible. "What's in there for us?" asked one official, who supports specific targets for foreign aid. "We're not advancing at all."

Environmentalists and advocates for the poor are vowing to march through the streets by the thousands Saturday to ensure that the link between poverty and environmental decay remains high on the agenda.

The failures after the last summit weren't from lack of trying. One of the things that all the delegates noticed in arriving in Rio is the awful stench of human excrement that permeated the city. Raw sewage flowed into the bay and spread so that they whole area was polluted. Did you know that the "West" spent more than $800Million trying to clean it up. After a decade, only three of 8 new sewage treatment facilities are working and the stench is just as bad now as it was then. Failures, yes, broken promises, no. Mismanagement, theft and graft on the part of the recipients of this largess...most definately.

 

[RastaPope]

I guess I'm supposed to say something controversial now.

How about, we've been spending billions of dollars over many years now and it's virtually all gone to waste. How can we send so much money overseas knowing that it will probably be wasted when there's so much work to do here in our schools, communities and in research and development to make a better future for all of us (like research into alternative fuels)?

We're already sending enough food to forestall the starvation concern.

Water wouldn't be such an issue if their population wasn't doubling every few years.

I completely agree with that. We should be taking care of Number one first. Only when everyone here that deserves aid is aided should we begin thinking about helping such countries. It's cold hearted, but fuck 'em. Seriously. Let them starve, that's all there is to it.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Good Morning Rasta. How are you?

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

US Commitment on Water.

Water for the Poor Initiative

The United States will announce an initiative to improve sustainable management of fresh water resources and accelerate and expand international efforts to achieve the UN Millennium Declaration Goal of cutting in half by 2015 the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water.

The United States will work with other governmental and non-governmental partners in three key areas:

Access to clean water and sanitation services. The United States will propose grant funding of up to $450 million over the next three years for water supply, sanitation and health projects. In addition, the United States will engage in the following partnerships totaling $60 million. In the West Africa Water Initiative, a $4.45 million grant will complement over $36 million in resources from private foundations, universities, and industry groups to support water, sanitation, and hygiene programs in West Africa. In a similar urban water partnership, $11 million of grant funds will combine with an estimated $55 million from other donors, local and national governments, associations of private water services companies, corporations, foundations, NGOs, and slum dwellers organizations. Also, the United States proposes local currency investment guarantees, coupled with technical assistance, to encourage private investment in water services - leveraging as much as $600 million with an estimated $45 million investment.

Improved watershed management. The United States will invest nearly $400 million over the next three years to promote management and protection of water resources. Activities will include the development of regional and national policies and regulatory frameworks for joint and integrated management of shared water resources, using advanced technologies – such as Geographic Information Systems – for better watershed management and interventions to reduce contamination.
Increasing the productivity of water. $60 million over the next three years will be invested to increase the efficiency of water use in industrial and agricultural activities. A critical element is to reduce water losses from irrigated agriculture.
Resources

The United States proposes up to $970 million will be invested over three years (2003-2005). It is anticipated that these investments will mobilize more than $1.6 billion for water-related activities globally.
Partners

The United States will share leadership with Japan and other interested developing and developed country partners.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Initiative to Cut Hunger in Africa

The United States will announce the launch of an Initiative to Cut Hunger in Africa.

As a significant step to meet the Millennium Declaration Goal of halving the number of severely impoverished and malnourished people by 2015, the United States will increase by over 25 percent our financial commitments to boost agricultural productivity and trade in Africa. These investments will focus on harnessing science and technology and unleashing the power of market forces to increase small holder agricultural productivity.

The Initiative establishes regional platforms in West Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa to empower African farmers by enhancing their access to technology and markets. The United States is seeking strategic partnerships in countries where good policies and strong governance create an environment conducive to investments in:

Spurring technology sharing to move research and development to small holders,

o Strengthening collaboration for agricultural decision-support systems through the Geographic Information for Sustainable Development (GISD) project,

o Building the capacity for agricultural innovation through increased funding for higher education and regional technology collaboration,

o Reducing trade-distorting tariffs and harmonizing grades and standards to facilitate inter-regional trade,

o Supporting investment alliances for expanding African-Global agricultural supply chains, and

o Expanding resources for local infrastructure in transportation, marketing, and communications.

o Action Plans to guide implementation will be developed by the end of the year in partnership with African leaders and technical organizations.

Resources

Of the $90 million proposed in 2003, $53 million is to harness science and technology for African farmers and $37 million is to unleash the power of markets for smallholder agriculture.
Partners

The United States will collaborate with NEPAD, national and regional trade and S&T organizations (e.g., SADC, CGIAR, COMESA, FARA, ECOWAS) as well as global and African industry partners.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

The Initiative establishes regional platforms in West Africa, East Africa, and Southern Africa to empower African farmers by enhancing their access to technology and markets. The United States is seeking strategic partnerships in countries where good policies and strong governance create an environment conducive to investments in:

Here's the rub that most of the developing countries don't like.."in countries where good policies and strong governance create an environment conducive to investment...."

 

[SINthysist]

I'm sorry, but it's become a real non-issue with me. I think the whole thing exists to get far left radical protestors television time. They need to start doing these things as virtual conferences. One a month. Pick a topic. Save some money. Reduce the wackos to spamming and hacking...

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

There is something to helping people survive. But this situation is criminal.

 

[SINthysist]

My supposition is increasingly that those people all live under governments that fit our definition of Ricco-Act violators...

We need to establish...

PAX AMERICANA

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Do you think Redwave might want to move there? How about if we bought him airline tickets?

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Here you go Ish.

 

[Sixth]

This is a huge increase in our commitment to foreign aid. I wonder how they'll "control" it so that it gets spent on the programs and people that it's meant for?

It's nothing.

Dubyah's also announced an 80% rise in subsidies from US farmers. That keeps the price of US goods artificially low.

If Africa could raise its trade output by 1% it would make an extra $70 -billion-.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

UK Times..Today...

UK Times - World News

August 28, 2002

Summit calls for cut in farm subsidies
By Anthony Browne, Environment Editor

BRITAIN backed calls yesterday for the West to reduce the $350 billion (£228 billion) in subsidies that it pays its farmers each year so poor countries can compete on a level playing field.
The subsidies that rich nations pay to protect their farmers and the punitive tariffs they impose on imports from developing countries have emerged as the most contentious issues at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The World Bank said that cutting subsidies was the single biggest way the West could help to relieve poverty in the developing world. Little progress was made, however, because the United States and the French insisted that cuts to subsidies were off the agenda.

Agreement was reached on a few small-scale initiatives to help farmers from the developing world to sell their produce to the West.

A campaign, called Jubilee 2020-2030, which is modelled on the Jubilee 2000 campaign to write off Third World debt, is being started today to demand that the West gives developing world farmers more opportunities.

The $350 billion that rich nations pay in subsidies to their farmers is nearly seven times the $57 billion that the West gives in development aid to poor countries.

The World Bank has estimated that if subsidies and tariffs were halved, it would boost the economies of developing countries by $150 billion a year.

The scale of the subsidies means that farmers from wealthy countries can undercut farmers in the Third World in their own market, while the high tariffs imposed on imports make it impossible for farmers from the Third World to gain access to Western markets.

Ian Goldin, the director of development policy at the World Bank, said: “When we spend $1 billion a day of taxpayers’ money on protecting agriculture in rich countries, we don’t serve sustainable development, and we certainly don’t serve the cause of economic growth and prosperity in the South.”

Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, told the summit that Britain backed calls to cut subsidies.

“Subsidies limit the access of developing-country products in developed-country markets and distort domestic markets in many developing countries. This is the reason why the

UK supports commitments to reduce all forms of export subsidies and trade-distorting domestic support.”

Europe is the most expensive place in the world to produce sugar, but EU subsidies have allowed European farmers to become the biggest sugar exporters in the world, with 40 per cent of the total market.

Last year the EU sold 770,000 tonnes of sugar to Algeria, and 150,000 tonnes to Nigeria, which deprived farmers in Zambia or Malawi of the opportunity to sell their sugar, even though they can produce it far more cheaply.

Meanwhile, the EU imposes tariffs of up to 140 per cent on sugar produced in the developing world and the US has just increased the subsidies that it pays to its sugar farmers to $1.1 billion a year.

The amount of maize sold by US farmers to Mexico has increased by a factor of 18 since 1993, and a quarter of the maize consumed in Mexico is now produced in the US.

Rather than tackling the issue, the summit agreed that it should be addressed by the Doha Development Agenda of the world negotiations, which should be completed by 2004. Last year’s “Doha Round” agreed that subsidies should be reduced, but set no targets.

The EU is reviewing the common agricultural policy so that it will be less geared to production and more focused on encouraging farmers to protect the environment.

Life is sweet - for some

Sugar costs £319 a tonne to produce in the EU.

EU farmers are guaranteed a subsidised price of £415 a tonne, and are protected by a 140 per cent tariff on non-EU sugar imports.

The subsidies have led to a surplus of seven million tonnes of sugar, which has been dumped on the world market, depressing the price to £121 a tonne.

Farmers in developing countries grow sugar cane rather than beet. It costs only £183 a tonne to produce, but this price is not competitive because of the EU dumping.

The subsidies and tariffs that inflate the price of sugar in the EU to £4.30 a kilogram also deflate the price in unprotected markets to £1.65.

This looks like a sensible approach.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Le Monde de France

Translated by Babblefish

The claim of the indigenous people at the Top of the Ponchos Earth Andean, tattooings maoris, Indian braids and Amazonian emplumés cover-chiefs invested Tuesday August 27 the ultramodern bookshop of Sandton, with two steps of the center of conferences, to present their political declaration, resulting from an indigenous top the previous week with Kimberley (South Africa).

The indigenous people plead for the inscription in the final declaration of the top of a simple sentence parapet: "We reaffirm the vital role of the indigenous people in the durable development." In the name of their single relation with the Earth, to know to them traditional, of their vision of a "durable" world.

"The economic globalisation is one of the principal obstacles to the rights of the indigenous people" appeared from Rio, poses the declaration of Kimberley, during declaration of Kari-Oca in 1992.

"Transnational Firms and industrialized countries impose their agenda on the international negotiations (...).
Intolerable levels of mining extraction, culture, production and consumption " involved a poverty, a plundering and an increased expropriation of the natives, continues the declaration.

"We are single in our relation with the Earth, we have something to offer to the world" as regards durable use of the environment, hammered Tom Goldtooth, a Dakota-Diné Indian of Minnesota.

But against the plundering of the resources and the knowledge of the indigenous people, the declaration insists on "the respect, the promotion and the protection of the systems of knowing traditional, and the guarantee of the rights of ownership collective intellectual" . To this end, the natives are ready with partnerships with the States, the private one, the international agencies.

What is concerned in Johannesburg, it is to avoid the "point of no return" of destruction of the Earth and "to make the decisions, as our elder did it, not for us or our children, but with a vision with seven generations" , has summarized Oren Lyons, iroquois head with the head of indigenous campaigns for fifteen years.

Inuits of the Arctic threatened by the climatic reheating, natives of the Philippines by mining, the first nations have various priorities, but all claim a "pause" , a time of "cure".

For Khoïsans of Southern Africa, this "spiritual cure" would pass by the restitution, like recently with "Venus hottentote", given by France to, "thousand South Africa of remainders of ancestors, preserved in boxes or bottles, on the racks of the universities and the museums".

 

[Sixth]

Re: UK Times..Today...

This looks like a sensible approach.

The sugar scam is well known to Europeans now - that's one of the reasons more and more politicans are on board with the idea to try and get rid of it.

 

[Sixth]

I'm watching parts of the summit now. It's amazing. There's all round support on suggestions like, "We should try and ensure that there is clean water widely available in every part of the world by 2010".

It really is a "should try" comment. They're using the phrase "target".

However, and this is the mad bit, the US delegation are standing up and saying that they don't agree to the target. They don't even want a target. Heh? Come on, that must be political madness. I can't honestly see an average American being so selfish.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

I'm watching parts of the summit now. It's amazing. There's all round support on suggestions like, "We should try and ensure that there is clean water widely available in every part of the world by 2010".

It really is a "should try" comment. They're using the phrase "target".

However, and this is the mad bit, the US delegation are standing up and saying that they don't agree to the target. They don't even want a target. Heh? Come on, that must be political madness. I can't honestly see an average American being so selfish.

This is strange. This is the day after the US announced plans for a large increase in food aid, in plans for improving the number of people that have access to safe water and health initiatives as well. On the surface, the two events (increase in aid and the noon-agreement to the "target statement") seem incongruous.

Thinking about it.....You would think that they could say something like "yes, if everyone meets there commitments, we could target..xx year for completion".

They might be mindful of the last several of these types of things where we put effort in and the whole thing falls apart and then fingers point to us and people say "you promised" like in the situation with the water in Rio.

I don't mind fingers pointing and tongues wagging. They always will. All you can do is to do the best that you can. Invariably all these programs fail anyway (some two-bit dictator absconds with all the money) so what does it hurt to say that you'll try. I wonder what the sticking point is in supporting the targets?

Thinking out loud..the US has put together a plan that it supports that requires partnership and sacrifice on the parts of the recipients. In some cases, in water, for example, it requires hiring a firm to provide water (since the Government officials in the countries in question have failed miserably). There are several reasons for this, namely, that if we simply gave the money to the country, it would all dissappear and secondly, they have to make it a viable and maintainable system which would mean that it must be paid for (we'll pay the capital, but the country must pay the on-going operating costs in essence). The countries would much rather have the money given to them. The US also wants the government to have rule of law and an infrastructure that will support the long term maintenance of these resources and processses as well.

This may be part of the reluctance. The US is saying, we'll support the goals if you follow this prescribed process. The establishment of targets might be opening the US to commitments to provide results (in a legal sense to the UN and to the International Court) irrespective of the process...that maybe if the targets are agreed to without the prescribed process being part of the agreement, then the US would have to "hand over" the money without having control of it and the leverage to make sure it isn't stolen and used to line the pockets of politicians.

There must be more to it than a simple statement of support.

 

[LovetoGiveRoses]

Did you find out any more through watching the TV? I'm curious.