When a reluctant George H W Bush, Sr, then US president, changed his mind and decided at the eleventh hour to address the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, he sounded defensive in his strong response to charges that the United States was one of the major powers responsible for the some of the world’s worst environmental ills – from greenhouse gases to conspicuous consumption.

‘I didn’t come here to apologise,’ Bush told world leaders in a defiant seven-minute speech, even as the IPS daily conference newspaper Terra Viva led off with the story in an arresting headline: ‘US President Snubs His Nose at Rest of the World.’

Before he left Washington DC for the Earth Summit, Bush had told reporters: ‘The day of the open chequebook is over’ – indicating that the financing scheme for the biodiversity convention will not work.

‘Sometimes leadership means standing alone,’ he said.

In that US presidential election year, Bush was virtually forced to attend the summit under political pressure from his Democratic rival Bill Clinton, who went on to win the presidency and beat Bush at the polls.

At a press conference in Washington DC, Clinton criticised Bush’s stance at the Earth Summit and accused him of ‘delaying world […]