Activists Say U.S. Is Trying to Weaken Summit’s Impact

Environmentalists participating in negotiations for the U.N.-sponsored Earth Summit to be held in June said Thursday there is scant chance that the conference will produce any meaningful agreements on the environment.

“Even minimum critical decisions are not being made,” said Barbara Bramble of the National Wildlife Federation, speaking on behalf of a broad coalition of environmental groups in the United States and abroad.

In secret negotiating sessions, the United States is “seeking to remove every reference to implementation” of any environmental programs, Bramble said. U.S. negotiators have also sought to remove a requirement that nations submit annual progress reports on their environmental activities, she said.

The environmentalists released a report card that gave the United States an F for its participation, its positions, its willingness to accept change and its proposed solutions. Europe and other countries fared slightly better.

The Earth Summit was conceived as a landmark conference that could lead to new international law and better cooperation among industrialized and developing countries. The conference, to be held in Brazil, has been preceded by a series of negotiating sessions, the last of which ends today at the United Nations in New York. The sessions have been marked by hours of argument over individual words in documents hundreds of pages long, participants said.

“This is yet another U.N. conference in which the political commitment is not there,” said Simon Stocker, representing European environmental groups. “We’re going through the motions.”

The environmentalists vowed to take over the process at their own conference in Rio, where they said they will reach international agreements that governments are incapable of.

Among the difficult issues that have not been dealt with, the environmentalists listed regulation of international trade and of multinational corporations, and easing the enormous foreign debt of many developing countries.