Arguments were continuing here last night about aspects of the agreement reached 24 hours earlier on the final contentious element of the second Earth Summit's Plan of Action. Frank McDonald, Environment Editor, in Johannesburg, reports.
Yet one of the most important international environmental instruments - the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change - received a powerful boost last night when both Russia and Canada confirmed they would ratify it.
Their ratification is crucial to make up the number of countries required for the protocol to come into force early next year, albeit by a slim margin. The EU has already ratified Kyoto, while the US decided last year to pull out.
Here, the US delegation was seeking to dilute the text on corporate accountability, leading the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to observe that the US had "a terrible habit of trying to unlock things even when they have been agreed".
Mr Ahern said the outcome of the summit, which some environment and development groups condemned as a "betrayal", would have been worse "if it wasn't for the global leadership provided by the EU". A spokesman for the Irish delegation said he expected the latest disputes would be resolved by the time it ends today.
Mr Ahern was among the heads of state or government who addressed yesterday's plenary session. In his speech, he stressed the need to "pick up the pace and act with political vision" to implement the agreement made here to ensure the next 10 years would become "the decade of action on sustainable development".
Afterwards, he said Ireland was fortunate to be part of the powerful EU bloc which had played a very progressive role at the summit. "Imagine if you were out here on your own," he remarked, adding that this was another argument for the Nice treaty.
Among the positive aspects highlighted by Mr Ahern were agreements on sanitation, chemicals, natural resources and overseas development aid.
He was disappointed, however, by the outcome on renewable energy. He noted the EU proposal for a 15 per cent share for renewables by 2015 but it had been opposed vigorously by "the Americans and others", such as OPEC.
The chairman of the Catholic relief agency Trócaire, Bishop John Kirby, welcomed the restatement by Mr Ahern of the Government's "absolute commitment to achieving by 2007 the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of GNP on overseas development assistance ".