Rift between Europe and America on firm targets

Deep divisions emerged yesterday between America and the European Union over how to improve the lives of poor people around the world even before the Earth Summit began.

As delegates were locked in negotiations, the rich nations were clearly split on whether specific goals should be set. Officials said that a failure to agree on the issue of targets would render the summit useless.

America is leading a group that is against setting targets to achieve specific goals, for example on halving the number of people who have no access to sanitation.

John Turner, the head of the American delegation, stressed his country's opposition to the whole idea of timetables. "I think it's important that we realise that those targets are no more than lofty aspirations, which sit somewhere in the rafters of the UN or somewhere else," he said.

While expressing America's support for sustainable development, Mr Turner added that "we all have to remember that this journey to reduce levels of the devastating poverty in the world is a very long journey".

Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, said the setting of timetables was crucial. She said: "Hopefully we can manage to persuade the Americans to accept targeting."

She added that steady progress was being made in narrowing these differences, but admitted the Americans were not interested in setting schedules. Britain wanted to establish mechanisms to monitor any agreements reached at the summit.

A European diplomat said Canada, Japan and Australia were in the US camp. Those nations believedtimetables would lead to "the slippery slope" of the developed world having to finance projects to ensure objectives were met.

Some developing nations were also unwilling to commit themselves to these targets, fearing they could not achieve them because of lack of resources, particularly with no firm guarantees of funding from the West.

Areas of dispute included questions about how much and when rich nations should pay and what responsibilities should be assumed by poor nations in improving the lives of their people and ensuring sustainable development. Other differences centred on issues of financing development, fair trade between the rich and poor countries, access to markets by poor countries, the sharing of renewable energy resources, strategies for reversing environmental degradation and how to ensure that economic globalisation can be equitable. Rich and poor nations also remained miles apart on good governance and access to markets.

* Switzerland has demanded that the South African government tighten security at the summit after break-ins at the hotel rooms of two women in its delegation. An intruder fired a shot at one woman after she was awakened early on Sunday morning. She was unhurt and the intruder ran off empty-handed. Another woman was the victim of a burglary that night while she slept.