U.N. Conference Quickly Turns to Who Will Pay for Ambitious Aims

The World Summit on Sustainable Development opened here Monday with the lofty aspiration that representatives of more than 190 nations will agree on a plan to develop the poorest countries without further fouling air, polluting water or degrading land. Yet negotiations quickly got bogged down between impoverished countries demanding more aid and wealthy nations reluctant to give it.

South African President Thabo Mbeki opened the meeting with a call for participants to pursue the goals adopted a decade ago at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Those included reversing “environmental destruction, poverty and inequality.” Unfortunately, little progress has been made, he told the delegates from around the globe, some in colorful garb and many sporting earphones to hear his speech translated into their languages.

“The tragic result of this is the avoidable increase in human misery and ecological degradation,” Mbeki said.

The 10-day, U.N.-sponsored conference has drawn about 12,600 people so far, including 5,730 government representatives, to a convention center in the Johannesburg suburb of Sandton. Ringed by concrete barricades, razor wire and 10,000 extra police officers, the first day’s sessions unfolded without significant protests.

But additional demonstrations are planned for the days ahead, and authorities are hoping there will be no repeat of skirmishes over the weekend that prompted police to fire stun grenades at 500 protesters and detain scores of others.

“This is not a summit for anarchy,” warned Nkosazana Zuma, South Africa’s foreign minister. “If people come to march peacefully, there will be no problem with the police. If you break the law, the law will take its course.”

Inside the summit compound, public speechmaking went on as scheduled, but negotiations struggled. The goals of the conference include reducing by half the 1 billion people without access to clean water and the 2 billion without proper sanitation. Other goals are to supply the poor with cheap but renewable energy and proper health care and to reverse the despoiling of agricultural land and the number of plant and animal species threatened with extinction.

A number of countries want an action plan to accompany the “Johannesburg Declaration” that would set unambiguous goals and also dates by which nations would have to show measurable progress. Such commitments, although not legally binding, are also sought for expanding the world’s reliance on solar, wind and other renewable energy sources to reduce its use of fossil fuels and the resulting pollution and emissions of globe-warming gases. But the Bush administration--which pulled out of the international Kyoto Protocol, designed to reduce greenhouse gases--has so far resisted setting specific goals and timetables.

“Goals are important,” said John Turner, the assistant secretary of State who is leading the U.S. delegation. “But they are only lofty rhetoric without the commitment of [financial] resources.”

A similar tussle is going on over the question of money. Developing nations want the United States and other wealthy countries to more than triple the amount of foreign aid they provide. Only with such economic help, these countries argue, can they protect their forests and other natural resources from being sacrificed to feed and shelter the poor or provide fuel to cook their meals.

The U.S. delegation emphasized the role of private investment rather than government aid to spur development. Turner suggested that how others view the Bush administration on these issues will change once it begins to roll out its package of “real action” projects and partnerships to tackle thorny environmental, economic and social problems.

President Bush, unlike leaders of 104 other nations, will not come here to present his case. Instead, he is dispatching Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to lead the delegation in the final days of the summit.