By
Stephen Dockery
BEIRUT:
Environmental group leaders are pessimistic about Lebanon benefiting from the
U.N. sustainable development conference that wrapped up Friday in Brazil,
despite a wide-ranging national report and calls for an environmental tribunal
from the prime minister.
This
week’s conference in Rio de Janero involved representatives from countries
around the world, and was meant to build international unity in improving the
global environment with less destructive development.
Lebanon’s
lack of participation in the three-day negotiations means the country is
unlikely to receive many benefits from the global conference, said Wael Hmaidan
who delivered an opening speech on behalf of all NGOs at the conference.
“What’s
disappointing first about this is that Lebanon wasn’t included in the
negotiation process,” said Hmaidan, a board member of the environmental group
IndyAct Lebanon.
Lebanon
was at the conference as an observer, and not a negotiator, in a move experts
say reflected a desire to avoid taking on international obligation.
Hmaidan
said Lebanon’s calls for world environmental reform would likely go unheeded
until the country makes international pledges it can be held to.
Lebanon’s
national report for the conference contains a stark analysis of the many
challenges the country faced in development over the past 20 years.
The
report notes the government’s largely ineffective approach to development that
fails to provide broad policy changes, as well as a number of political
challenges that have continued to set the country back.
It
calls for accelerating political, social and economic reform, rooting out
corruption and adopting a wide-ranging new development strategy to generate
jobs, energy and create better urban planning.
At
the conference Thursday, Prime Minister Najib Mikati called for the creation of
an international environmental tribunal to try Israel for causing the 2006 oil
spill on Lebanon’s shoreline, and criticized the Jewish state’s refusal to
comply with United Nations resolutions.
“Lebanon
proposes establishing an international environmental tribunal following the
environmental consequences of the 2006 war – primarily the oil pollution crisis
over which Lebanon has not received any compensation from the Israeli enemy,”
Mikati said during his speech.
Mikati
was referring to Israel’s bombing of Lebanon’s Jiyye power station during the
34-day conflict in July and August of 2006. The bombing caused the power
station to release 15,000 tons of unrefined fuel oil into the Mediterranean
sea.
“These
statements are not binding in any way,” Hmaidan said about Lebanon’s national
report to the conference and Mikati’s calls.
“We
need serious commitments, we don’t need fake promises,” he said.
The
other major reason the conference in Rio is unlikely to yield dividends is a
general lack of international consensus to create global-sized solutions to
environmental problems.
Activists
say large-scale solutions are needed to combat environmental problems due to
population growth and global warming, but criticize the U.N. conference
participants for showing up to the much-heralded event without the political
will to make meaningful change.
A
wide variety of pundits and activists have panned the conference’s final
document, issued Friday, for not living up to expectations. There will be a
number of environmental conferences around the world in the coming years, with
the largest coming in 2015. Many activists are reassessing their goals and hope
to be able to build the political support for meaningful environmental
agreements by then.
From
now until then, Hmaidan would like to see Lebanon step up its role in the
environmental field, adopt international goals and be a negotiator and mediator
in discussions.
“We have in our nature
strong diplomatic skills,” Hmaidan said. “We need to benefit from this skill
and contribute to international regime building.”
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Jun-23/177865-rio-environment-meet-unlikely-to-benefit-lebanon-activists.ashx#axzz1ybg35qDz
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