Earth Summit Kicks off to Address Challenges of 6 Billion Population

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, August 27, 2002

Earth Summit Kicks off to Address Challenges of 6 Billion Population

The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) kicked off Monday in Johannesburg to address major challenges and the future for 6 billion population on the earth.

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The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) kicked off Monday in Johannesburg to address major challenges and the future for 6 billion population on the earth.

South African President Thabo Mbeki was elected chairman of the summit, which has brought about 10,000 world leaders, government delegates, UN officials, citizen's groups and business representatives worldwide up to now.

Billed as the largest international gathering in the early 21stcentury, this is a follow-up to the 1992 Rio Summit in Brazil. Thesummit is a major opportunity for the world to move towards a sustainable future, one that will allow people to meet their needs without harming the environment.

While addressing the opening ceremony of the WSSD, Mbeki urged the Earth Summit to come out with a credible and meaningful plan of action for the realization of the goals that the world has set.

"We do not have a new agenda to discover. We have no obligation to relearn what we already know about the parlous state of human society and the environment," he said.

The summit will conclude with the adoption of a political declaration reaffirming the commitment to sustainable development and a plan of action with specific targets.

Another important outcome will be initiatives between governments, civil society, the private sector and international organizations, such as the Global Village Energy, which will help address such specific problems as water, energy, health, sanitation and trade as well as poverty eradication.

Mbeki said in his opening address that the 1992 Rio Earth Summit produced several landmark agreements aimed at halting and reversing environmental destruction, poverty and inequality.

In accepting the Agenda 21, "the world agreed to integrate social and economic development with environment protection in a manner that would ensure the sustainability of our planet and prosperity of all humanity," he said.

These important decisions were reinforced by the conclusions reached at a series of international conferences covering such important issues as food security, environment and financing for development.

"Sadly, we have not made much progress in realizing the grand vision contained in Agenda 21 and other international agreements", he said.

There are 1.2 billion people living on less than one dollar a day, and about half the world's population lives on less than two dollars a day.

With few choices or opportunities, they are condemned to lives that are prone to hunger, disease, illiteracy, jobless and hopelessness. Too often, they lack access to food, safe drinking water, sanitation, education, health care and modern energy services.

Addressing the meeting, Secretary-General of the summit Nitin Desai called upon the government delegates and representatives of non-governmental organizations to work together to make achievements out of the summit.

He said "it is important to focus on the programs concerning some key areas, such as poverty, education, water, agriculture, biodiversity and health. It will be a long way to go to solve these problems."

Klau Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Development, said that awareness has increased and progress has been made at the national and international level in confronting environmental challenges and achieving sustainability.

"At the same time new scientific evidence of the planetary dimensions of global environment change has raised the need for a quantum increase in our efforts," he added.

He said "we have all agreed that this is the summit of implementation, the summit of accountability and of partnership. We have all agreed that concrete implementation must be the focus of our work."

"The time has come to translate our political commitment into action. Implementation must be our target to fight poverty, for responsible prosperity for all human beings," he said.

UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown echoed that the Earth Summit "represents an historic opportunity to build on all this progress, and map out practical plans of action for a sustainable future."

"The leaders of the world must come up with an agreement that show their citizens, particularly the poor, that they are truly committed to helping provide prosperity to all the world's people while protecting the planet for future generations," he added.

Up to now, more than 120 heads of state and government said they would come to Johannesburg for the summit on Sept. 2, including French President Jacques Chirac, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov.

However, US President George Walker Bush said that he would not attend the summit.

Central to the discussions on sustainable development are the key questions of poverty eradication, human rights, environmental justice, equitable distribution of resources, fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, women's empowerment, global peace and fair trade between developing and developed countries.

Six plenary sessions will follow around key areas, such as health, agriculture, bio-diversity, water and sanitation, energy, trade and education.

Representatives from up to 50 governments will participate in each topic on the round table.

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