Johannesburg | Thursday
THE world has ”grown more sceptical” about meetings such as the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, which was why the meeting should focus on ”practical actions”, not ”fine phrases”, said British Secretary of State for the Environment Margaret Beckett.
In a speech prepared for delivery at the Delta Environmental Centre in Johannesburg on Thursday afternoon, Beckett said: ”The politics of world inequality are still stark. Some 1,3-billion people live on less than $1 a day and about two billion people have no access to electricity. And perhaps the most indefensible of all is that two million children die each year simply from drinking contaminated water.”
That was why the WSSD was ”not about the environment as such. It is about sustainable development the pursuit of policies which… strike the right balance between the environment, economy and society”.
The visiting minister in South Africa to prepare for the WSSD in Johannesburg in August and September said poverty and environmental degradation fed on one another.
In a globalised world, poverty, terrorism, disease, climate change, migration and drug abuse were the new challenges to the international community. No nation could solve these problems on their own. The international community had to act together ”in pursuit of interests that transcend national borders and traditional notions of sovereignty”.
Self-interest and common interest went hand-in-hand when faced with these threats.
Beckett said she expected three outcomes from the WSSD. The first was a short political declaration. The second would be known as the Johannesburg Programme of Action.
”Action, not words,” she said.
The third a number of agreements involving government, business, non-governmental organisations and other interested parties.
Only agreements of this kind in which government, business and civil society all took collective responsibility could achieve the kind of results the WSSD looked for.
The Johannesburg action programme should be specific, targeted and transparent, and should set out key milestones on the way to reaching goals such as halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by the year 2015.
”Poverty eradication through sustainable development will be our top priority for the summit.”
The aims of the WSSD needed financing, Beckett said, and the UK was committed to reaching the United Nations’ goal of devoting 0,7% of gross domestic product to overseas development aid.
”We would urge all developed countries to do likewise.”
Addressing a media breakfast earlier in the day, Beckett said that opening up the European Union’s (EU) markets to the agricultural produce of poor countries was another way to reduce poverty. Britain was in discussions with its continental partners about reducing agricultural subsidies in the EU and opening up the market, but ”we still have to win those arguments”.
The EU’s common agricultural policy (Cap) had been in effect for 50 years, and was difficult to change. But there was hope, because EU taxpayers and consumers were discontented with the high taxes and high food prices which the Cap required. – Sapa