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Pastimes : GET THE U.S. OUT of The U.N NOW! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (256)	8/14/2002 10:00:46 AM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 411

A top U.N. official warned Tuesday that the long-term security of Earth and its people will be compromised if the world doesn't change its "indiscriminate patterns of development." Undersecretary-General Nitin Desai, in a report preceding the World Summit on Sustainable Development that is to begin in Johannesburg Aug. 26, said a pre-summit forum is set to finalize a new global implementation plan to accelerate sustainable development, and to launch a series of innovative partnerships to promote sustainability. Desai, the undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, is also the secretary-general of the summit, which lasts until Sept. 4. In the summit report he introduced Tuesday, "Global Challenge Global Opportunity," Desai said the international community must take action. "If we do nothing to change our current indiscriminate patterns of development, we will compromise the long-term security of the Earth and its people." The report examines a number of issues that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has identified as central to negotiations at the summit, including water and sanitation, energy, agricultural productivity, biodiversity, and human health, Desai told reporters. In many areas there were excellent examples of small-scale initiatives, but those good examples had not been "taken to scale," he said, adding that urgent action to do that was now needed. The great challenge of Johannesburg was to determine how to engage governments and mobilize the non-governmental organizations, local authorities and, in certain cases, the private sector, Desai said. Governments should emerge from Johannesburg committed to take an integrated view of sustainable development, recognize the urgency of the problems and devise practical ways of taking NGO-led innovations from the community levels to scale, he stressed. More than 100 world leaders were expected to attend the summit, Desai said. The 21-page report, prepared by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, found in an assessment of current trends that 40 percent of the world's population faced water shortages; global sea levels were rising, a clear indication of the impact of global warming; many plant and animal species were at risk of extinction, including half of the large primates, man's closest animal relatives; 2.4 percent of the world's forests were destroyed during the 1990s and every year more than 3 million people die from the effects of air pollution. It wasn't all bad news, however. The report identified the emergence of sustainable development practices on a small scale that were beginning to be replicated to address issues such as ecosystem preservation, urban air pollution and child mortality linked to unsafe water. At the same time, it warned that the gains were imperiled if greater action was not taken soon to reverse the more disturbing trends noted in the report upi.com