Prescott warns that Earth Summit failure would wreak global havoc

Failure at the Earth Summit would cause the whole international negotiating system built up over the past 50 years to "unravel", John Prescott told The Independent yesterday.

The Deputy Prime Minister gave his stark warning in the only interview he has given since arriving at the summit. He spoke as negotiations entered their final stages and the United States continued to reject the inclusion of any new concrete targets or commitments in a final plan of action.

He said the whole multilateral system that works through the United Nations was at stake at the summit, adding; "If we fail here, things would unravel on a scale that we have not seen before in international negotiations. That would be tragic for the whole world and most of all for those who are in poverty and despair." With some of the most contentious issues still in dispute between the United States, the European Union and the Third World, negotiators are working round the clock on a plan of action that was originally scheduled to be finalised by tonight, before more than 100 heads of Government start arriving here to endorse it on Monday.

Mr Prescott said: "This is a very difficult conference where a lot of things are working against agreement." But he added there was "a better mood than I expected", stressing the US was still involved in constructive talks.

However, senior US sources say "a significant part" of the Bush administration actively wants to end the multilateral negotiating system that is used on issues ranging from global warming to arms control. They see it as an unnecessary restraint on the world's remaining superpower.

Mr Prescott warned it would not be enough just to reach an anodyne agreement. The summit had to "reverse the trend of environmental degradation" and to reduce poverty, in particular by giving people access to clean drinking water he said.

The United States is opposing the adoption of a target – by the year 2015 – to reduce by half the number of people who do not have adequate sanitation. The current total is 2.4 billion people. The EU and other countries see the target as a vital part of cleaning up the polluted drinking water that kills 2.2 million people, mainly children, every year.

Mr Prescott also took issue with America by insisting the principle of "shared but differentiated responsibility"– which means rich countries must carry the heaviest burden in solving environmental crises – must feature in any final agreement.

The principle was agreed at the Rio Earth Summit 10 years ago, but the United States has so far been against it in these negotiations. Mr Prescott is working behind the scenes, as the direct representative of the Prime Minister. Margaret Beckett, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary is leading Britain's negotiating team.

Mr Prescott is holding a series of private meetings with representatives of other countries, most of whom he has met during the past two years when he travelled the world, at Mr Blair's request, to urge other leaders to attend the summit.

He specifically praised the South African Government, which is hosting the talks, and Mrs Beckett, with whom he fought a battle for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party.

The summit has made some progress by agreeing to a strategy to control chemicals that have "significant adverse effects on health and the environment" by 2020. And, yesterday, a group of rich and poor countries launched a joint initiative to get the summit to agree to quadrupling the amount of energy derived from clean, renewable sources such as solar and wind power. The group, led by Brazil and backed by all Latin American and Caribbean countries, want the world to get 10 per cent of its energy from those sources by 2010.

That trumps EU negotiators who – as The Independent reported on Wednesday – proposed an increase of only about one per cent, and included controversial sources such as hydropower, burning wood and dung.