|
A Ten Point Plan to Save the Earth
Summit
A Joint NGO
Initiative
We, Non-Government Organizations (NGO) gathered from
around the world, are increasingly concerned by UNCED's
lack of progress and regressive trends since its
original mandate. The United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED) has not even begun
to address the fundamental issues that must be dealt with to
alleviate the twin crises of environment and development
worldwide. On the contrary, on many issues the Earth Summit
is clearly moving backwards.
Fundamentally, UNCED has thus far failed to make a strong
commitment to meeting the priority needs of women,
indigenous peoples, youth, NGOs and social movements.
Special attention must be directed at strengthening
democratic rights and gender balance in institutions, policy
and decision making process, and programs.
We believe that, for UNCED to become part of the solution
rather than the problem, it must address the challenges
listed below. Without them the planet's chances of survival
will grow even slimmer.
This ten point plan should be built into the Earth
Charter and Agenda 21 along with a commitment to place the
environment, and all the life it supports, as its first
priority.
- CLIMATE CHANGE: As part of a Climate Change
Convention, UNCED must agree to legally binding
targets and timetables for substantial reductions
in Greenhouse Gas emissions, in particular CO2.
Industrialized nations must be the first to act on this.
The Bush administration's refusal to even consider
CO2 emission cuts is setting the Earth Summit up for
failure.
- CONSUMPTION PATTERNS: UNCED must call for a
cut in the North's consumption of resources and an
immediate transformation of technology to create
ecological sustainability in the North. This is
essential if the needs of both present and
future generations are to be fulfilled.
- ECONOMIC REFORM: UNCED should initiate a
process of global economic reform that will reverse
the South-North outflow of resources, improve the
South's terms of trade, and reduce its debt burden.
Such reform is essential if the South is to gain
the necessary economic space to implement a
transition to ecologically sound and socially
equitable development.
- GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT FACILITY: While UNCED must
generate new and additionalresources to solve
global environmental problems, it must also call
for an end to World Bank control of the Global
Environment Facility (GEF). The World Bank's
disastrous record of promoting environmental
destruction, as well as Third World poverty, makes
it the least suitable agency to manage
funds generated by the Earth Summit.
- TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATIONS: UNCED must call
for strong national and international regulation of
transnational corporations rather than the
unacceptable self-regulation currently proposed. The
Earth Summit should also call for restoration and
strengthening of the United Nations Centre
on Transnational Corporations, rather than allowing
the Business Council for Sustainable Development to
go unopposed in the UNCED process.
- HAZARDOUS WASTES: UNCED must call for a ban on
the export of hazardous wastes and dirty industries
worldwide, thus fortifying existing regional waste trade
bans. It must also pressure he North to solve its
own toxic and nuclear waste problems. Proposals to
this effect have either been rejected at UNCED or
watered down to insignificance by the OECD countries.
- FORESTS: UNCED must address the real causes of
forest destruction (tropical, temperate, boreal)
globally, and promote equitable international principles.
In addition, UNCED must recognize and support land and
cultural rights of indigenous peoples and
traditional forest dwellers. Plantingne trees,
as UNCED proposes, cannot be a substitute for saving
existing natural forests and the cultures that live
in them.
- NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND POWER: UNCED must call for
an end to all nuclear weapons testing, and the rapid
phase-out of all nuclear power plants. In the midst
of nuclear disasters, weapons tests and
near-accidents, these issues have been inexplicably
excluded from the Earth Summit agenda.
- BIOTECHNOLOGY: UNCED must take urgent and
binding safety measures (including, at the very
least, an intenational code of conduct on safety in
biotechnology) to control the health and environmental
risks of biotechnology research and application.
- TRADE: UNCED must not endorse free trade as
the key to achieving "sustainable development." It
must reconcile trade practices with environmental
protection. Social, political and environmental concerns
must form the framework within which trade takes
place, not vice versa.
These and other actions are fundamental if we aretto
address the huge environment and development problems
the world faces. Positive change requires a major turn
around by the US government, as well as other
industrialized nations, and an intensive effort by all
parties involved.
As Non-Governmental Organizations we have been constantly
pushing for UNCED to take these issues on; if all
government delegates and the Secretariat were to act
upon these essential points, our faith in the process
woldbbe renewed.
However, it appears that the Earth Summit is failing to
meet its challenge and instead moving in the opposite
direction from the path it must forge to save the
planet from destruction. Moreover, the gravity of the
situation deepens as UNCED entrusts care for
environment and development with the very
institutions that are causing many of the problems in
the first place. Regrettably, barring a dramatic
change in course, UNCED is heading toward a failure of
historic proportions that the Earth and its people
cannot afford.
Back to top...
This plan was sponsored by:
- Greenpeace International
- The Forum of Brazilian NGOs (representing 1,200
groups) Friends of the Earth International
- Third World Network
Organizational and Coalition Endorsements:
- Action Aid, United Kingdom
- Action for Solidarity, Equality, Environment and
Development (an international grass roots youth network)
- American Baptist Church, Ecology and Racial Justice,
USA American Indian Law Alliance, USA ArcPeace
International Alliance of Northern Peoples for
Environment and Development (ANPED) Associacion
Ecologica Coyoacan, A.C. BUND, Germany Campaign for Peace
and Cooperation, Sweden Campagna Nord-Sud, Italy
- Canadian Council on International Cooperation, Canada
Center for Development of International Law, USA
- Center for Science and Environment, India
- Conference of United Churches of Christ Environment
Committee Coordinadora de Organizaciones de Defensa
Ambiental, Spain Earth Community Center & Center
of Concern, Washington D.C., USA
- ENDA Inter-Arab, Tunisia Environment and
Development in the Third World, Senegal Eurostep
Filipino Rural Reconstruction Movement, Philippines
- Foro Mexicano de la Sociedad Civil Para El Medio
Ambiente y Desarrollo, Mexico
- Friends of the Earth, Germany Friends of the Earth,
USA Fundepublico, Colombia Highlander Center, USA
International Coordinating Committee for Religion and the
Earth International Environmental Law Center,
Australia
- MLUC Mobilization for Survival, USA
- Native American Council of New York City, USA
- National Toxics Campaign, USA
- Nature and Youth, Norway Naturschutzbund, Germany
Network for Environmental and Economic Responsibility of
United
- Church of Christ, USA
- Netherlands Organisation for Development
Cooperation--
- NOVIB
- New Zealand UNCED Earth Summit Committee,
- New Zealand NOFF,
- Norway Pacific Island Association of NGO's
(PIANGO)
- Pan-African Movement Pacto Latinoamericano de
Accion Ecologica, Latin America Presbyterian Church
Environmental Ethics Committee, USA
- Pro Regenwald, Germany
- Red de Oranizaciones Ambientalistas de Paraguay,
Paraguay
- Riverside Church, New York, USA SANE/Freeze
International Sierra Club, USA Sobrevivencia,
Paraguay
- Third World Institute, Uruguay United Church Board
for Homeland Ministries, USA United Church Board for
World Ministries, USA
- United Church of Christ, USA
- United Church of Christ, Office of Church in Society,
USA United Methodist Church Eco-justice Project
Network, USA Women's Caucus at PrepComm 4
Organizations for Identification Purposes Only:
- Tariq Banuri, International Union for the
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Pakistan
- Barbara Bramble, National Wildlife Federation, USA
Francois Coutu, United Nations Association of Canada,
Canada Scott Hajost, Environmental Defense Fund
Sister Pat Kenoyer, Loreto Community John M.
Miller, International Peace Bureau
- Fran Spivey Weber, National Audubon Society, USA
Back...
|
