Bush climate plan disappoints as UN meeting ends
Date: 18-Feb-02
Country: COLOMBIA
Author: Ibon Villelabeitia
"We all recognize that it is time for action on the environment .... The security of the Earth is at stake," David Anderson, Canada's environment minister, told 600 delegates at a U.N. conference on the environment in Colombia.
The delegates approved a global plan to crack down on the production, smuggling and dumping of illegal hazardous chemicals - many of which have been found to be contaminating the world's most remote and pristine areas.
But the main objective of the conference, which ended last week, was to prepare for a world environment summit in Johannesburg in August and September.
U.S. President George W. Bush's alternative plan to the Kyoto climate change treaty, outlined last week, diverted the attention of delegates who said it does not address global warming.
"We need a global treaty to address the issue of climate change but for the time being we have to accept a plural system: countries that have ratified Kyoto and countries that have not, like the United States," Japan's Hironori Hamanaka, vice minister for global environment affairs, told Reuters. Japan has said it plans to ratify the Kyoto treaty this year.
Canada's Anderson called Washington's plan "the beginning of the steps in the voyage," but said, "Much more will have to be done."
Last week, Bush presented a voluntary plan to slow the growth of heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming, in contrast to the mandatory limits sought in the 1997 Kyoto treaty.
The United States, the world's biggest polluter, pulled out of the treaty in March, saying it would harm its economy.
REPORT SAYS AFFLUENCE CAUSES MOST ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS
A United Nations report released at the conference's end cited affluence as the cause of "most of the environmental issues facing us" and said "over-consumption is destroying our resource base."
At the same time, the report called for a stronger effort to fight poverty, which it described as "toxic to the environment." Land degradation, marine pollution, deforestation, increasing death toll in natural disasters "all are caused by, or exacerbated by, our failure to combat poverty," the report said.
But the conference was mostly dedicated to procedural and technical matters, with many closed-door meetings dragging into the wee hours of the morning and adjourning only when the translators pleaded exhaustion.
The conference officials also gave the first report on the status of the endangered dugong, a species of sea cow that is believed to have inspired sailors' tales of mermaids. Only about 1,000 to 2,000 dugongs are believed to exist in the world's oceans.
