Negotiators Still Deadlocked on Key Earth Summit Issues

After five grueling weeks, negotiators preparing for a major, multinational environmental summit in Brazil remained deadlocked Friday over significant issues that have dogged them through four long international conferences.

The matters left unfinished here and the possibility of a deadlock over separate global warming issues sharpened the possibility that the summit, set for June in Rio de Janeiro, could fall short of the high hopes for its success.

Still hoping for last-minute breakthroughs, however, the delegates, numbering more than 1,000, worked into the night.

Principal among the issues that the full summit is now likely to have to weigh is the question of how much money the world’s industrial nations will provide developing countries to help them protect their environments while they try to improve their economies.

Maurice Strong, the Canadian diplomat who will serve as secretary general of the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, conceded that the gathering also would be unable to complete the much-debated Earth Charter, a far-reaching statement of philosophical and political commitments to protecting the environment.

Along with a massive document called Agenda 21, which lays out environmental and developmental objectives into the next century, the Earth Charter has been viewed as one of the centerpieces of the historic conference.

But given the negotiating that remains, it is possible that the Earth Charter will have to be downgraded to a less sweeping document, Strong said.

Despite the delegates’ inability to resolve so many thorny issues in advance, Strong pronounced preparations for the summit a “Herculean” success.

“If we stopped now, we still have covered an immense amount of ground,” he said late in the day. Work on Agenda 21 has succeeded beyond his hopes, he said, despite the failure to agree on financing issues.

In addition to resolving the question of environmental aid to developing countries, delegates to the summit in Rio de Janeiro will be asked to complete agreements on forest protection, technology transfer and other matters left unfinished by the preparatory conferences.

Although officials have said for months that they expect more than 100 heads of government to attend the meetings, only 60 so far have committed themselves to go.

President Bush is among those yet to decide whether he will go.

The Brazilian government is urging him to attend, saying that his presence would encourage others to participate.

Now that the general preparatory meetings have ended, negotiations are continuing on two separate documents planned for signing at the summit: a treaty on the preservation of biological diversity and an agreement on measures to combat the threat of global warming.

A final round of talks about global warming is scheduled to begin in New York on April 30, but the turning point may come in two weeks when the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meets in Paris.

The 24 industrialized countries that make up the organization hope to agree on a position about setting targets and deadlines for reductions in the emission of carbon dioxide, the “greenhouse gas” that many scientists believe threatens to warm the Earth’s climate to devastating levels.

The United States remains a lonely holdout against a formal deadline, but its delegation to the OECD meeting is expected to present new data showing that steps now being taken will come close to stabilizing the country’s carbon dioxide emissions.

Bush Administration officials, concerned over the economic impact of carbon dioxide reductions, have refused for more than two years to go along with European countries urging that emissions be stabilized at 1990 levels by the turn of the century.

Environmentalists who have been following the summit preparations over the last five weeks blamed the United States on Friday for blocking progress in the talks.

Washington has avoided both leadership and commitment on crucial issues before the summit, according to an umbrella environmental group called the Consortium for Action to Protect the Earth.

The final outcome of the meetings still will be determined by the global warming negotiations, said Environmental Defense Fund counsel Scott Hajost.

“The book has not yet been closed on preparations for Rio,” he said.

“The centerpiece of the Earth Summit, an effective climate treaty, remains to be negotiated. Come May, the United States will have to provide legally binding commitments to limit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases if Rio is to produce any meaningful results.”