Our position is that USA is the biggest culprit in the world.
---Environment minister Kamal Nath on the eve of his departure to Rio

We cannot permit the extreme in the environmental movement to shut down the United States. We cannot shut down the lives of many Americans by going to the extreme on the environment.
---US President George Bush defending his not signing the biodiversity treaty

The Third World elite and their global groupies have descended upon the Earth Summit with plans to extract up to Us $140 billion from Western taxpayers.
---Particia Adams, director of Probe international, a Canadian NGO, commenting on the demand of the south for funds

USA is not in Rio to hand out money
---William Reilly, head of the US delegation to UNCED

Today is the first day of the rest of the world.
---Hollywood star, Roger Moore, welcoming the Gaia to Rio

Of course, USA is a major player on climate change, on biodiversity, and on resources. But it is not so big a player that the play cannot go on without it... The best way to pressure USA is to show that the rest of the world is ready to move without her.
---Shridath rampal president, IUCN, an international NGO

If you think of the relationship is cosy between UNCED and indigenous people, it is a fraud - only photo oppertunities. The words of the indigenous peoples are too painful for them to hear.
---Norman Shaifer, Indigenous Peoples Media Centre, charging that indigenous communities had been denied adequate access to Riocentro, the venue of the official conference

We don't have an open pocket book... the financial parts are too open-ended for us.
---George Bush, discussing the biodiversity convention with John Major

I own country has not always taken the wisest course.... With an attitude of generosity and cooperation and with caerful management of always limited financial resources we can have a better world for citizens of rich nations.... but also for citizens of other nations...
---Jimmy Carter, Former President of USA

We speak of 'Mother Earth' and we decry the 'rape' of the earth. But if we are going to treat the planet with the same respect that we show the bodies of women, of mothers, then I have very little hope.
---Susannah Heschel, Jewish theologian from USA

Stop bushwacking the planet.
---Banner in an ecology walk

...the limitations of eco-diplomacy became apparent. In an effort to guarntee Grorge Bush's presence in Rio, it (the EC) failed to press for concrete results and gave priority to form rather than substance ... By poting for hypocrisy we will not save the earth.
---Carlo Ripa di Meana, Ec environment commissioner

The Earth Summit is meeig of the international left.
---Republican Senator Larry Pressler

What we see in USA is something like 'ecologism'- fear for a new communism hidden behind ecology.
---German environment minister, Klaus Topfer

If they want us to live like savages, civilised people should an example. They should turn off the light in all the cities. Then as we are all in the dark, I will accept the fact that we don't have any light.
---Chief Jurana of the Xavantes community

I thought that biodiversity is all about saving the real bushes and qualis.
---Kamal Nath, responding to President George Bush,s statement that signing the biodiversity convention would lose jobs in USA

We are disappointed . UNCED speaks for the 20th century, not for the 21st. Its language is that of all those political leaders who have allowed the world to get into the state it is in.
---Wagaki Mwangi, in her speech to UNCED on behalf of the world's youth

The United Nations must never hold an international conference during an American election year.
---Tommy Koh, chairperson of UNCED's main committee

Let the ecological debt be paid...may hunger disappear, not man.
---Fidel Castro

Bush is an environmental degenerate.
---Greenpeace

I didn't come here to apologise.
---George Bush

We are the leaders, not the followers.
---George Bush, addressing a press conference on his return from Rio

Surviving like rats is not what we should bequeath to our children and grand children... the demographic tsunami is everybody's business.
---jacques Cousteau, world-famous oceanographer

We owe the world to be frank about what we have achieved here in Rio; progress in many fields, too little progress at all in same fields, and no progress at all in some fields.
---Gro Harlem Brundtland