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GBlist: (fwd) E-Link: 'Patience of a Camel' Needed in Sust. Dev. Talks



>Date: Wed, 30 Apr 1997 16:15:37 -0400 (EDT)
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>Subject: E-Link: 'Patience of a Camel' Needed in Sust. Dev. Talks
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>This news story is from the Environment News Service:
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>
>"PATIENCE OF A CAMEL" NEEDED IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT TALKS
>
>NEW YORK, N.Y., Apr. 29, 1997 (ENS) - Five years after the Earth Summit '92
>in Rio de Janeiro, the state of the global environment has continued to
>deteriorate. While there was progress in material and energy efficiency,
>particularly in non-renewable resources, overall trends remained
>unsustainable. 
>
>That is the conclusion of the 53 country United Nations Commission on
>Sustainable Development (CSD) which wound up three weeks of meetings late
>Friday night by approving a draft final document to be transmitted to a
>special session of the General Assembly. The special session will review
>the implementation of Agenda 21 - the blueprint for action adopted by the
>Earth Summit - from June 23 to 27 at UN Headquarters in New York. 
>
>CSD delegates did agree that the global environment is still going
>downhill, but they agreed on little else.
>
>Contentious language still remains in the draft final document in the
>sections on consumption and production patterns, forests, energy,
>transport, atmosphere, desertification and drought, financial resources and
>mechanisms, international legal instruments and the Rio Declaration on
>Environment and Development, and the multi-year programme of work of the
>Commission for the period 1998-2001. 
>
>In the section on forests, still at issue is the question of establishing
>either an ad hoc open-ended intergovernmental forum on forests or an
>intergovernmental negotiating committee on a legally binding instrument on
>all types of forests, with a focused and time-limited mandate. References to
>"traditional forest-related knowledge" also remain bracketed. When language
>is "bracketed" it means no agreement was reached.
>
>Commission Chairman Mostafa Tolba of Eygpt, complimenting the work of the
>moderator of the talks on forests, said that Mr. Asadi of Iran had needed
>"the patience of a camel" to get through the negotiations. Tolba is a
>former executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.
>
>The draft final document's section on financial resources and mechanisms
>was the subject of intense negotiations. A paragraph stating that financing
>for the implementation of Agenda 21 would come from countries' own public and
>private sectors, although agreed on in prior negotiations, was bracketed
>because of objections by the representative of the United Republic of
>Tanzania, speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and
>China. 
>
>Another bracketed paragraph in the section on financial mechanisms states,
>in part, that "official development assistance (ODA) remains a main source
>of external funding and is essential for the prompt and effective
>implementation of Agenda 21". Language stating that ODA cannot be replaced
>by private capital flows also remains bracketed. 
>
>In the section on changing consumption and production patterns, the Group
>of 77 and China insisted on leaving in brackets language referring to
>unsustainable patterns in the industrialized countries that continue to
>aggravate the threats to the environment. There is also reference to the
>emergence of similar patterns in higher income groups in some developing
>countries.
>
>An entire paragraph in the section on international legal instruments
>remained bracketed. It covers access to information, public participation
>and the right to complaint as hallmarks of environmental democracy. It also
>covers seeking redress from decisions that were socially and
>environmentally harmful or that violated human rights. This idea was
>rejected by the Group of 77 and China. 
>
>Concerning atmosphere issues, language referring to insufficient progress
>by developed countries in meeting the aim of returning greenhouse gas
>emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 remains bracketed. Also bracketed
>are references to a legally binding commitment for specified reduction of
>emissions of carbon dioxide below the 1990 level in a specified time period. 
>In the section on transport, still contentious are references to an
>initiative to prepare, at the international level, a tax on aviation fuel;
>acceleration of the phasing out of leaded gasoline; and the setting of
>targets on emissions. 
>
>In the section of the draft document on desertification and drought,
>references to the Global Mechanism created by the Convention to Combat
>Desertification and to transfer of environmentally sound technologies to
>developing countries remain in bracket. 
>
>Text on radioactive wastes is also bracketed, with reference to the
>proximity principle in disposal activities remaining particularly
>contentious. During the discussion on the matter, the representatives of
>the Russian Federation and Ukraine reserved their position on the matter. 
>
>The Chairman of the drafting group that negotiated freshwater resources,
>Derek Osborn of the United Kingdom, said that "a most instructive debate
>had been held" on the issue of freshwater. There had been a sense that a
>worldwide initiative was required on it, but, Osborn observed, such a
>process would only make sense if the world community gave resources to
>those facing a scarcity of water. 
>
>Poverty eradication is an overriding theme of sustainable development for the
>coming years the delegates agreed. Five years after Rio, there is an urgent
>need for the timely and full implementation of all the relevant
>commitments, agreements and targets already agreed upon since Rio by the
>international community, including the United Nations system and
>international financial institutions.
>
>High-level government ministers, in a special set of meetings, heard
>fromSecretariat representatives and heads of various United Nations
>agencies. It was told by the Under-Secretary-General for Policy
>Coordination and Sustainable Development, Nitin Desai, that the Commission
>should take the lead and follow through on issues of unsustainable
>production and consumption patterns. He also called on the Commission to
>move forward on the crucial issues of the availability of financial
>resources and the transfer of technology, since expectations had been
>aroused and not much progress had been made. 
>
>Mohamed T. El-Ashry, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the GEF, said
>the Facility represented the first and most significant financial
>accomplishment arising from the Rio summit. It had 160 participating
>countries and had been designated the interim financial mechanism for the
>Biological Diversity Convention and the Climate Change Convention,
>programming more than $1.3 billion in grants to developing countries. It
>had also leveraged an additional $3.3 billion from bilateral, national,
>multilateral and private sources. 
>
>The need to strengthen links among international conventions related to
>biodiversity, climate change and combating desertification was highlighted,
>and it was stressed that such links were crucial for sustainable development. 
>
>Among the achievements since UNCED, the draft notes the entry into force
>ofthe Conventions on Climate Change, on Biodiversity and to Combat
>Desertification. Moreover, agreements had been concluded on straddling and
>migratory fish stocks and the Programme of Action for the Sustainable
>Development of Small Island Developing States had been adopted. Also, the
>Global Programme for Action for the Protection of Marine Environment and
>Land-based Activities had been elaborated. 
>
>
>---
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>.-
>
>

Hal Levin         <hlevin@cruzio.com>

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