Word: presummit
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...rich worlds' profligate consumption patterns -- their big cars, refrigerators and climate-controlled shopping malls -- that are the problem. "You can't have an environmentally healthy planet in a world that is socially unjust," says Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello. Counters a U.S. representative to a presummit negotiating session: "They are trying to lay a collective guilt trip on us because we try to give our people a higher standard of living...
...wealth finds its way from North to South. So far, the industrial nations have held pretty tightly to their purse strings. In March the U.S. did pledge $75 million to help poor countries find ways to reduce the production of gases that may cause global warming; and at the presummit negotiations, there were hints from developed nations that as much as $6 billion in debt relief and other financial guarantees might be forthcoming at the Rio conference itself. But that is a pittance compared with the $125 billion that Strong has said the developed nations will need to contribute annually...
...Bush Administration had hoped to make deforestation a showcase issue going into Rio. The presummit discussions opened with a U.S.-inspired proposal for an outright ban on logging in tropical forests. But the developing countries retaliated by demanding that the language cover temperate and boreal (northern) forests as well. The move was clearly aimed at the U.S., which has strenuously resisted any scrutiny of the logging practices in publicly owned ancient forests in the Pacific Northwest...
Several of Gorbachev's advisers added that they were concerned about his thin skin and his tendency to personalize political disputes. Hence they were upset to find the U.S. press awash in what they took to be officially instigated presummit Yeltsin bashing...
...WORD FROM OUR SUMMIT SPONSOR . . . White House planners are well used to the never ending demands of the network correspondents, but their patience was sorely tested at presummit requests to stage live remotes from the East Room, site of the Bush-Gorbachev signing ceremonies. Since the President has long complained about anchors doing "stand-ups" from the briefing room while he is still on the podium, the idea was nixed. "They wanted to cover it like a bowling tournament," protested one advance...