Johannesburg gets set for summit

Ncedo Masango, 1, of Swaziland has AIDS, as does her mother; disease and poverty are on the summit agenda

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (CNN) -- Johannesburg is cleaning up, going green and putting on a pretty face to host what is being touted as the biggest U.N. conference ever: the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.

More than 60,000 people are converging here to tackle a gargantuan task: Saving the planet and saving the poor.

"We really don't have that much time, you know," says Nitin Desai, U.N. secretary-general for the summit.

"Ten years ago we met in Rio and we had a lot of promises and set out a great vision, but we haven't actually gotten things going."

The U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was a global undertaking to protect the planet's finite resources.

IN-DEPTH Global balance: Johannesburg Summit 2002  Time.com: How to preserve the planet and make this a Green Century    FACTOIDS • During 1990s, 2.4% of world's forest destroyed   • World's population to reach 8 billion by 2025   • By 2025, 50% of world's population to face water shortages   • In 1981, fossil fuels generated 86% of energy; today it's 81%     RESOURCES Official site: Johannesburg Summit 2002     QUICKVOTE Will the Johannesburg Summit achieve more than the Rio Earth Summit 10 years ago? Yes No View Results

Beginning August 26, world leaders, non-governmental organizations, activists, and big business will be meeting to try to kick start the momentum created at Rio. Topping the agenda is poverty alleviation.

Delegates will be arguing, demonstrating and debating over a 71-page draft document that will define just how the Earth's limited resources can be protected and how poverty can be eradicated.

Government representatives will be penciling in and crossing out sections of the draft, and a final document is expected to be adopted when the summit ends September 4.

But some observers are sceptical of the outcome.

"Unfortunately the plan of action itself is full of diplo-babble, which is nice-sounding words that don't actually mean much," says Steve Sawyer of Greenpeace.

Most of the disagreement lies in agreeing on concrete targets and finding the cash to pay for the programs. Also, the political climate has changed since the first earth summit 10 years ago in Rio. In these days of globalisation, there is more talk about world trade than clean air.

Many observers predict the Johannesburg summit will end up in a standoff between rich and poor, between the over-consuming industrialized nations and the ones still struggling to develop.

"But I think there is beginning to be an understanding that even the rich will end up being affected by the problems of the poor," says Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, South African minister of foreign affairs.

The highrises of Sandton, where the World Summit will be held, loom over the shanty town of Alexandria

Just 10 minutes from the conference center in one of South Africa's richest suburbs is Alexandra, home to some of South Africa's poorest. Here are the faces behind all the U.N statistics.

Among them: Jimmy Ramothibe, one of the 3 billion people worldwide who live on less than $2 a day; Edmound Rikhotso, one of 2.4 billion who lack access to proper sanitation; Patient Phasha who makes 20 trips a day down a filthy alley to get water; and Andries Nsikelelo, who feeds his wife, three children, a mother and two brothers by selling rubbish for recycling.

These are the people who hope the summit will create more than just the litter of 71 pages of good intentions.