MORE than 50 heads of state or governments including the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, are expected to address the Earth Summit plus 5 special session of the United Nations General Assembly, which environmentalists are hoping will give a new impetus to the commitments made in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
They are not overly optimistic, however. Mr Cliff Curtis, of Greenpeace International, believes "we are going backward, not forward, in addressing sustainable development". Despite the urgency of the situation, far too little was being done and the talks so far had "set the stage for a failure" this week.
"Overall, the state of the global environment has continued to deteriorate, with rising levels of toxic pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and solid waste. Renewable resources, particularly fresh water, forests, topsoil and marine fish stocks, continue to be used at rates that are clearly unsustainable."
These are not Greenpeace's words, but an official assessment by the UN. Yet the 172 countries represented at the Rio summit are still engaged in negotiations, some would say bickering, over a range of unresolved differences, notably on how to finance "sustainable development".
The UN concedes there is now a split between the industrialised countries of the North and the developing countries of the South, and that this has "dimmed the Rio spirit". Many of the more contentious issues have been "left hanging" to see if they can be resolved at the General Assembly's special session.
One indication of these deep divisions is that the two sides even disagree about whether the Rio provisions on finance and technology transfer to enable poorer countries achieve sustainable development were "commitments" or merely "objectives".
The Group of 77, which actually represents 132 developing states, is pushing hard for industrialised countries to make available "new and additional" resources and environmental technologies at affordable prices, as they promised at the Earth Summit.
The special session will consider a draft declaration which calls on countries to "move now from words to deeds" and to recognise that implementing of Agenda 21 - the Rio "bible" for the 21st century - is now "more urgent than ever" if the current trend of environmental deterioration is to be reversed.
The draft isolates 20 areas for "urgent action" including eradicating poverty; changing patterns of production and consumption; making trade, environment and sustainable development mutually supportive; reducing desertification; conserving fresh water; and protecting oceans, biodiversity and the atmosphere.
In an important step, the draft would urge governments to give "the highest priority" to the twin problem of scarcity and pollution of fresh water supplies in many regions. A recent UN study showed two thirds of the world's population will suffer from shortages of clean water within 30 years unless action is taken.
On oceans, the draft declaration goes beyond goes beyond Agenda 21 to stress the need for governments to prevent or eliminate over-fishing. This comes after a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report warning that 70 per cent of the world's commercial fisheries are either over fished or depleted.
The FAO has also reported that some 480 million acres of forests were destroyed between 1980 and 1995, with only 48 million acres of new plantations established in the same period. Yet there is still serious disagreement on whether to begin negotiations on a legal convention to protect what's left of the forests.
The rate of loss, particularly of tropical rain forests, is so alarming that most environmentalists are opposed to a convention simply because it would take too long to negotiate. They want immediate action and say the existing Biodiversity Convention - one of the main Rio instruments - should be used to protect threatened forests.
The UN's panel on forests has made some progress. In Rio, countries were so suspicious of one another on this issue that they were even hesitant to agree on a broad set of principles for sustainable forest management. But the latest state of play represents "an enormous advance on the Earth Summit", according to a spokesman.
On the crucial issue of global warming, environmentalists are counting on the General Assembly to send a "strong signal" to the third Conference of the Parties to the Climate Change Convention in Kyoto next December that it must agree on a protocol setting timetables for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU has proposed a 15 per cent reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2010 while the Alliance of Small Island States - desperately concerned by the threat of rising sea levels - wants a 20 per cent cut in emissions below 1990 levels by 2005. However, the US is against specifying targets or timetables "at this tome".
Among the new initiatives tabled for the special session is an EU proposal for a tax on aviation fuel to provide much-needed additional funds for sustainable development.
Environmentalists have called for a commitment to double funding - from $2 billion to $4 billion over a three-year period - for the World Bank's Global Environmental Facility, which was established just before the Earth Summit to channel grants to projects tackling environmental problems. This is unlikely, however.
