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SUSTAINABLE ENERGY NEWS NUMBER 10

5. Questions & Answers

What are the outcomes of the WSSD EU Initiative and the Brazilian energy initiative? There was an 'informal' gathering of governments hosted by the EU at COP 8. This involved lots of discussion, but no particular conclusions. A number of countries expressed their willingness to work with the EU including Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Mexico and Brazil. The group of countries has increased since the summit and has been named "the group of like-minded countries". Denmark as president of the EU has contacted all UN countries with the aim of getting confirmation on the intention to participate in the group. According the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affair, Uganda and Brazil are engaged very actively. The intention is to meet in the margins of international conferences to discuss how to proceed. Germany will be hosting an international conference on renewable energy in 2004 as part of their activities to promote targets on renewable energy. Brazil as a G77 member is regarded an extremely important player, and the EU is hoping that Brazil would take the lead in the further work in order to get more developing countries to join. November 12 and 13 saw a 'technical' meeting in Sao Paolo hosted by Jose Goldemberg with participants from, Denmark, UK, France and Tuvalu. They are supposed to try to bridge the gap between the various EU proposals and the Brazilian proposal. In the meantime, Dr. Goldemberg has come up with a 'post WSSD' version of the Brazilian Initiative. If the technical meeting goes well, then there is supposed to be a Latin America wide consultation process led by the outgoing Brazilian government and then some sort of formal signing ceremony in Brussels as a legacy issue for Fernando Henrique. What will come of this is unclear. Rumour has it that his new Energy minister will be Luis Pinguelli Rosa, who is good on most energy subjects, but is pro-nuke. The Brazilian energy council pushed any decisions on the new reactor off until at least May 2003, by setting a series of conditions that the new reactor couldn't possibly meet. As far as the EU, Greenpeace is currently fighting hard against a nuclear initiative which would pass liability for long-term storage and some parts of decommissioning of the nuclear industry away from private industry onto the state(s), which of course would be an economic disaster. - Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace & Mette Nedergaard, WWF-DK. For a copy of the Brazilian initiative and/or a description of the EU initiative on energy for poverty and a paper Ms Nedergaard produced for Danish NGOs on possibilities for NGO action on the initiative, email erika@earthlife.org.za.

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