World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) 2002 - Johannesburg

General Overview

The 2002 WSSD was a ten-year review of progress made since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The WSSD mandate was to produce 'specific time bound measures to be undertaken''. Unfortunately very few action-oriented words survived the UN negotiations between the PrepComs 1 (April 2001) and PrepCom 4 (June 2002). With so many issues and not enough time, governments, many of which lacked sufficient vision and political will, did not manage to commit themselves beyond previous meetings of Heads of State. Thus previous agreements made in the Millennium Declaration (2000), Monterrey Consensus on Financing for Development (2001) and WTO Doha 'consensus' on trade (2001) were used as the ceiling for countries unwilling to make new political or financial commitments for sustainable development. In some areas, for example, biodiversity and toxic chemicals, the negotiations at Johannesburg WSSD resulted in backwards movement.

Internet Links to WWF's review of what was not achieved at the WSSD :

• WSSD-looking back at events
• WSSD on energy - nothing for the poor, nothing for the climate
• WSSD: World Summit of Shameful Deals