IRAQ, TERROR DIVERT FOCUS FROM ENVIRONMENT

03.05.2004 [19:23]
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The Iraq war and terrorism have shoved critical environmental problems like global warming and dwindling natural resources out of the world spotlight, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this week. "However understandable that focus might be, we cannot lose any more time or ground in the wider struggle for human well-being. Just as we need balanced development, so do we need a balanced international agenda," the U.N. leader said.

Annan was addressing a meeting of more than 80 environment ministers and other high officials, called to gauge progress toward the global goal of "sustainable development" in which economic growth would no longer come at the expense of environmental degradation.

While there has been important progress toward achieving sustainable development, key challenges remain, Annan said.

Twelve years after the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, "the natural resource base is under siege. Unsustainable patterns of consumption and production are still the norm.

Progress in slowing deforestation and biodiversity loss has been glacial," he said.

GLOBAL WARMING FIGHT IN LIMBO

Annan singled out the United States and Russia for undermining efforts to rein in global warming, saying unless Moscow and Washington ratify the 1997 Kyoto protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions, "we cannot fully and properly address the issue of climate change."The United States is by far the world's biggest polluter, but after initially embracing the Kyoto treaty, President Bush withdrew from it in 2001, saying it was too expensive and unfairly excluded developing nations.Russia signed the pact in 1999, but last year put off ratification indefinitely, saying it needed to reexamine whether its economic interests would be damaged.

Developed nations responsible for 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions have to ratify the pact for it to come into force. This means that either Moscow or Washington must do so for the treaty to go forward.

Environment ministers addressing the conference stressed that steadily increasing the number of people with access to clean water, sanitation, and adequate housing would go far toward achieving broad U.N. antipoverty goals.

But officials of poor nations replied they had neither the money nor the means to go forward.

"The greatest obstacle in the way is still the lack of means of implementation. The developing countries are troubled with shortage of financial resources, technologies and capability," said Liu Jiang, the head of China's delegation.

Iranian U.N. envoy Nasrollah Kazemi Kamyab said, "It is crystal clear that there is still huge need" for more help from wealthy nations, international financial institutions, and the United Nations.

IRAQ, TERROR DIVERT FOCUS FROM ENVIRONMENT

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