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Earth Summit ship is sinking
31 May 2002: Bali, Indonesia: The Earth
Summit is in danger of collapse, says major environment groups after
the end of the first week of the final preparatory meeting in Bali
for the Johannesburg Earth Summit.
Greenpeace, WWF and Friends of the Earth sent a
salvo to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a bid to rescue
the stagnant Bali meeting, which is set with the task of deciding
the format for an agreement at the summit on key global issues including
water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity.
"Unless Kofi Annan intervenes to raise the
political stakes before ministers arrive on Monday, the summit will
end up as 'Rio minus 10', not Rio plus 10," said Remi Parmentier,
Political Director of Greenpeace International.
"The EU and G77 countries must come together
to ensure this conference has a benefit for people and the planet.
Otherwise they will be caving in to the Bush administration whose
key objective seems to be a summit that produces no real consequences,"
said Kim Carstensen, CEO of WWF Denmark and Head of WWF's delegation
in Bali.
"People all over the world are protesting
against corporate globalization - but governments continue to sacrifice
the Earth Summit on the altar of Exxon, Monsanto and co," said
Daniel Mittler Earth Summit Coordinator for Friends of the Earth.
In the letter
to Kofi Annan, the groups warned that:
No-one amongst governments seems to have taken
any notice of your request that at the Earth Summit "We must
rehabilitate our one and only planet".
Governments continue to put corporate globalisation
before the interests of people and the planet. Your vision that
"together, we can and must write a new and hopeful chapter
in natural - and human - history" is being flatly ignored.
Governments have failed to respond to the global call to establish
social and environmental limits to economic globalisation.
Nittin Desai, the summit Secretary General said:
"The summit is expected to provide the impetus for specific
action that will comprise a major departure from business as usual"
and that "We have to think big and go to scale".
And Dr Emil Salim, the Chairman of the Summit´s
Preparatory Committee said that: "If we continue as we have
done in the past, we will sink".
Mr Annan, the Earth Summit is sinking.
The central problem is a lack of concrete actions,
targets and timetables and the absence of means of implementation
and financial resources.
Media contacts
Susan Cavanagh press officer Bali Tel +62 (0)817 971 0052 or +316
212 969 10
Remi Parmentier Bali Tel +62 (0)817 971 0054, Kim Carstensen Bali
Tel +62 (0)817 9707827
Daniel Mittler Tel +49 173 9234747
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