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Many Summit Goals Realized At Midpoint
United Nations
Johannesburg, 31 August - The World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg reached its midpoint with significant agreements on a wide
range of issues and major announcements on resources and partnerships, yet full
agreement on a Programme of Implementation is still dependent on a
breakthrough on some of the toughest issues.
Several of the Summit's objectives have already been met, according to
Johannesburg Summit Secretary-General Nitin Desai. "One of the main goals
of the Summit was to have the international community reaffirm their
support for implementing Agenda 21 and the Millennium Declaration goals,
and that has happened," Desai said. "The Summit was also intended to
accelerate implementation of sustainable development, and from the
announcements of significant new resources and partnerships, that has
happened. And lastly, we sought to put sustainable development back on the
international agenda and in the global consciousness, and without question, that
too has happened."
Desai added that it was still important to get commitments from governments
in the final outcome document, but stressed that the important aim of the
Summit, from the outset, has been to encourage actual implementation, not the
negotiation or renegotiation of goals and principles. "What we want, more
than anything else, is to encourage governments, community citizen groups, and
the private sector to act in a sustainable way. We need large-scale
implementation efforts that will have a tangible and beneficial impact on
people's lives and the environment."
The negotiations have cleared about 95 per cent of the Plan of
Implementation, although technically, nothing is officially agreed until
everything is agreed. Still, consensus has been reached on agreements
on a wide range of issues, including commitments to improve access to clean
water, proper sanitation, and modern and clean energy. Also agreed are
provisions and funding that will improve agricultural productivity and
combat desertification, and reduce the health risks from pollution and
water-borne diseases, as well as a host of provisions aimed at improving
biodiversity and ecosystem management.
But negotiations on the final document are still focused on several
important outstanding issues, including targets for expanding access to
sanitation and achieving a certain level of renewable energy, subsidies,
and a provision urging the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on climate
change.
Among the significant agreements reached in the negotiations are provisions
to take action on the five areas that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
suggested that the Summit tackle. A list of these commitments, which is
not exhaustive, includes:
· Commitment to launch programmes to achieve the goal of halving the
proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
· Commitment to develop and implement initiatives to increase access to
proper sanitation facilities in homes and institutions, especially
schools.
· Commitment to increase access to modern energy services for the two
billion people who lack them.
· Commitment to establish programmes that will boost energy efficiency and
increase the use of renewable energy.
· Commitment to establish policies that will level the playing field for
renewable and cleaner fossil fuel energy and technologies.
· Commitment to phase out by 2020 the use and production of chemicals that
harm human health and the environment.
· Commitment to restore fisheries to their maximum sustainable yields by
2015.
· Commitment to establish a representative network of marine protected
areas by 2012.
· Commitment to implement the Global Programme of Action for the
Protection of the Marine Environment from Land Based Sources of
Pollution by 2004.
· Commitment to improve developing countries' access to
environmentally-sound alternatives to ozone depleting chemicals by 2010.
· Commitment to take immediate action on domestic forest law enforcement
and the international trade in forest products.
· Commitment to finance activities for the Convention to Combat
Desertification through the Global Environment Facility.
· Commitment to enhance the role of women at all levels and in all aspects
of rural development, agriculture, nutrition, and food security.
· Commitment to replenish the Global Environment Facility at a record
level of $2.92 billion.
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