7. THE 1992 RIO CONFERENCE In June 1992, well-known corporate leaders appeared in the mass media as saviours of the environment. Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, head of Volvo at the time, allowed himself to be photographed sitting on a bicycle. He urged people to pick up litter on the streets. Antonia Ax:son Johnson, owner of one of Sweden’s leading retailing chains, was shown holding her hands protectively over a globe of the world and telling us she always asks for environment-friendly dish-washing machine detergent in the shop. No reporters asked the department store and wholesale owner to explain why she was selling environmentally unfriendly detergents in her shops.1 It was time for another UN conference on the environment. The transnational corporations had hired the public-relations company Burson-Marsteller to give them an environmental image before the meeting in Rio de Janeiro. Burson-Marsteller is a corporation with offices in 27 countries. Its clients include governments as well as transnational corporations. The company was responsible for an extensive neo-liberal campaign by the Swedish Employers’ Association (SAF) in the 1980s. It was hired by Union Carbide after the deadly gas release in Bhopal, and improved Exxon’s image after the Valdez accident. Burson-Marsteller point out in their prospectus that their experts have many years of experience in managing difficult conflicts: “They have gained insight into the key activist groups (religious, consumer, ethnic, and environmental) and the tactics and strategies of those who tend to generate and sustain issues.“2 The task before the Rio conference was to transform the large corporations from environmental villains to environmentalists and to convince activists about the sense in co-operating with them. That is why Gyllenhammar sat on a bicycle and why Antonia Ax:son Johnson “always buys“ environment-friendly detergent. The same gimmick was used in Stockholm 20 years earlier. The conference participants sat on bicycles to be photographed. Several had a hard time keeping their balance, being unaccustomed to this type of vehicle. Maurice Strong directed the conference in Rio in the same way he had the conference in Stockholm. Large corporations had direct informal influence, in addition to access to formal diplomatic channels, while the environmental movement was expected to lend credibility to the event, without interfering with the predetermined programme. Strong recruited Swiss businessman Stephan Schmidheiny as his closest advisor on issues involving business and industry. Schmidheiny brought together about 50 colleagues in the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD). In the book, Changing Course, A Global Business Perspective on Development and Environment, these representatives of transnational business voted themselves as the most reliable managers of the environment. They explained that trade and investments must not be hampered by environmental regulations and import restrictions. The best the poor countries could do to develop and protect their environment was to: 1. produce staple commodities for the world market; which would ensure that natural resources were priced properly; and 2. co-operate with transnational corporations in the development of such a national economy. Forests are best preserved by measures that “allow developers to exercise management control over the long term“.3 Developing countries would be given access to new, environment-friendlier technology only provided they respected “intellectual property rights“. In other words, the copyrights, patents etc. associated with the technical monopolies of transnational companies.4 Most important is the encouragement of foreign investment: “The main elements of an attractive investment climate are known and proven: macro-economic stability; free, open markets; clear property rights; and political stability. Unless these four conditions are largely satisfied, sustainable development is simply not possible. This is why the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank and IMF are to be welcomed... they increase the pressure on states to make the right changes.“5 Nature must be privatised for the sake of sustainable development. That was the rationale. Forests and agricultural land are to be managed by the transnational corporations, and air and water, along with the right to pollute them and patent their life forms, will be transformed into trade commodities. Stephan Schmidheiny is one of the main owners of ABB. He is also a member of the board of Nestlé, which is known for its marketing of breast milk substitutes in the Third World. He is the largest share holder in one of Chile’s most powerful corporations with holdings in mining, steel works and forests. The Huasco Valley in northern Chile has long had the country’s greatest olive production, with a total annual harvest of 6,000 tonnes. Now, the valley produces no more than 1,000 tonnes per year. In 1978, Schmidheiny’s corporation built an iron smelter in the region. Since then, the olive groves have been blackened by smog and dust. If a magnet is held close to the leaves, they are drawn to it like file filings. The farmers saw up the trees for firewood one after another. An investigation has revealed that the smelter emits over 37 tonnes of particles to the atmosphere per day, more than 50 times the allowable level in the US. However, the management of the corporation believes that the farmers should accept technical solutions, rather than calling for a ban and compensation for damages.6 Among the members of the Business Council for Sustainable Development were leaders of several of the most environmentally destructive corporations in the world. Two Swedes were members: Antonia Ax:son Johnson and Percy Barnevik, the head of ABB. Maurice Strong cut through all the formalities so that Schmidheiny and his friends could secure themselves a central position in the preparations for the UN conference.7 Large corporations had no difficulty defending themselves against criticism and demands for control and regulation. The corporations were a kind of unofficial joint organiser of the conference and sponsored the event. Strong formed a private foundation, Ecofund ‘92, for the transfer of contributions to the project. Through it transnational companies such as Coca-Cola, ICI and Atlantic Richfield Company contributed towards the salaries of the UN staff.8 Warren Lindner saw to it that the environmental activists who made it to Rio were placed in an environmental fair, 40 km from the conference site. The site was shared with new age prophets, Hare Krishna followers, and pub–lic relations men from mining companies and chemical concerns. Maurice Strong marched through the streets with Pelé and Olivia Newton-John for the survival of the world, and Shirley MacLaine and Al Gore were there to testify before the world’s press to their love of nature. The representatives of environmental organisations who had gained accreditation to the conference were expected to trail around after the delegates and compete with the well positioned transnational lobbyists. If they stepped outside of the framework and disrupted the programme with their own actions, they were hounded by guards.9 Maurice Strong’s task was to balance the demands of the poor countries and the need for binding agreements to protect the environment with the growing demands of transnational corporations. He spoke seriously about the unsustainable lifestyle of the rich countries, and he was disappointed with the opposition of some governments. But, the conference resulted in nothing more than promises, without any commitments. Parallel to the activities of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, the large corporations carried out traditional lobbying of their governments. A grouping, called the Global Climate Coalition, acting through the US government, obstructed every attempt at reaching a binding decision on carbon dioxide emissions. The organisation included Dow Chemical and DuPont, both members of the BCSD, and Atlantic Richfield, which is found among the sponsors of almost every established environmental institute. Acting through the director’s club, The European Round Table of Industrialists (see Chapter 10), the large European corporations influenced the negotiation positions of European Union Members. Schmidheiny and three of his colleagues in the BCSD were also members of ERT. Promises of an environment-friendly, favourable development for the Third World were soon filed and forgotten. Only the words of a secret World Bank memo of December 1991, written by Chief Economist Lawrence H. Summers remained: “...Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [least developed countries]? I can think of three reasons: 1. The measurement of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. 2. The costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as the initial increments of pollution probably have very low cost. I’ve always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly under-polluted... 3. The demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity. The concern over an agent that causes a one in a million change in the odds of prostate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostate cancer than in a country where under 5 mortality is 200 per thousand...“10 The mathematics used were similar to those which Barbara Ward and René Dubos had applied at the UN conference in Stockholm, in 1972: marginalised people in the southern continents fetch a negligible price on the world market. If somebody’s going to die, it might as well be them. Lawrence Summers apologised for the heartless tone of his text, but everyone knew that he only spelled out what was implied in the environmental politics of the rich countries. Summers later became Under-Secretary for International Economic Affairs in Bill Clinton’s government. The calculations he made were to guide the approach of the rich countries at following conferences on the deepening environmental crisis. Free trade with emission rights and continued export of hazardous waste are recurrent interests. Pushed by the inner circles and their lobbyists and PR firms, national leaders try to find a sustainable development that is acceptable to opinion at home, but does not stop the destruction of the environment that the transnationals’ empire entails. 1 Aftonbladet, 2 June 1992, and 12 June 1992. 2 The Greenpeace Book of Greenwash (1992), p. 7; and No Sweat News, Fall 1993. 3 Stephan Schmidheiny with the Business Council for Sustainable Development (Cambridge, Mass. 1992), Changing Course - A Global Perspective on Environment and Development, p. 157. 4 Ibid., p. 125. 5 Ibid., p. 172. 6 Financial Times, 12 August 1992. 7 Financial Times, 7 May 1992, and 28 May 1992. 8 SEEDlinks, 2/92. 9 Dagens Nyheter, 5 June 1992, and 13 June 1992; and Tord Björk, Jan Wiklund (ed), Den globala konflikten om miljön och framtiden (Stockholm 1993), p. 164. 10 Financial Times, 10 February 1992; and SEEDlinks, 6/92. BACK TO CONTENTS
		© Mikael Nyberg 2001-03-29