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Governments fail sustainable development
and the environment at recent UN conference
Monterrey, Mexico, 22 March 2002: On the
final day of the UN International Conference on Financing for Development,
governments have singularly failed to move the sustainable development
agenda forward.
The only crumbs that have been offered for aid
to the poor have been conditional on countries opening their markets
to industry while forgetting that it is the current global economic
model which has widened the gap between rich and poor and increased
environmental degradation world-wide.
"People are going to die because of the failure
of governments here in Monterrey," said Greenpeace campaigner
Paul Horsman in Monterrey, "and they think they can get away
with it. But the international community now needs to rally round
and get on and do what governments have failed to do here in Monterrey."
This conference has forgotten that most of the
world's poorest are in areas where there are no markets, where business
has no interest. It is these people - the most vulnerable - that
will be still left wanting.
Once you scratch the thin veneer of sustainable
development rhetoric and concern for the poor you see that the main
debate is about governance, by which most countries mean creating
the conditions for access to markets. Even the so-called 'commitment'
of US$5 bn by the President Bush is conditional on those countries
which will adjust their politics and economy as dictated by the
US and it still leaves the world's most powerful and richest country
at the bottom of the league in amount of development aid.
"The call for good governance is especially
hypocritical when coming from the US which rejects International
Environmental Agreements and Arms Treaties and where companies like
Enron were considered successful global businesses - surely they
should lead by example?" added Horsman.
The 10 years since the Rio Earth Summit have been a decade of failed
promises, and it looks like this failure will continue with the
Monterrey Consensus which is simply an agreement that enables governments
to rubber stamp ongoing environmental degradation and increasing
disaffection by billions of poor people.
One key issue is that the International Financial
Institutions and national governments should give priority to the
funding for sustainable energy i.e. efficiency and renewable energy
sources as a means to fight against poverty. Access to clean energy
is a key driver for development which is sustainable in economic,
social and environmental terms.
At Johannesburg Earth Summit Greenpeace is calling
for the launch of a massive uptake of renewable energy globally
and for the two billion people who have no access to modern energy
services.
Media contacts: Greenpeace campaigners in Monterrey: Paul Horsman
(English) Juergen Knirsch (German) ++52 818 054 1772; Rosa Moreno
(Spanish & French)+52 818 705 4475; Cecilia Navarro (Spanish)
+52 (01) 555 940 6033
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