DIVERGENT VIEWS ON REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS EXPRESSED BY SPEAKERS IN SPECIAL SESSION COMMITTEE OF WHOLE
Press Release
GA/9265
ENV/DEV/431
DIVERGENT VIEWS ON REDUCTION OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS EXPRESSED BY SPEAKERS IN SPECIAL SESSION COMMITTEE OF WHOLE
19970623 Greenhouse gas emissions could not be contained by action in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) alone, the General Assembly special session's Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole was told this morning as it continued to hear statements by representatives of convention secretariats, United Nations and other organizations as well as observers.The Committee of the Whole has the task of completing negotiations on the draft final outcome of the special session, which is reviewing implementation of Agenda 21, the programme of action adopted by the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).
While industrialized countries recognized that they should take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the trend in energy consumption had been shifting, the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, the body responsible for energy matters in the OECD, said. Energy-related CO2 emissions in developing countries were expected to double between 1990 and 2010, while the rise in OECD countries would be no more than 20 or 30 per cent.
Commenting on the remarks by the IEA representative, the Committee Chairman, Mostafa Tolba (Egypt), said the level from which emissions of developing countries would double was much lower in comparison to the current level of emissions of the developed countries. Therefore, a rise of 20 to 30 per cent for the developed countries was a significant rise.
The Rector of the United Nations University said that following the Rio Summit, a new programme on environmentally sustainable development had been developed and integrated into the University's regular programme. Its main focus was on capacity-building and it was articulated around the themes of eco-restructuring for sustainable development, the management of natural resources and environmental law and governance.
Statements were also made by the following: Director-General of the International Organization for Migration; Secretary-General of the Agence de la francophonie; the Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General; President of the third meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity; Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization; and the Secretary-General of the OECD.
The Committee will meet again at a time to be announced in the Journal.
Ad Hoc Committee Work Programme
The Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the General Assembly's nineteenth special session met this morning to continue hearing statements of representatives of observers, heads of secretariats of the various sustainable development-related conventions, representatives of United Nations programmes and organizations, international financial institutions, regional organizations, other United Nations bodies and observers. The Committee also has the task of completing the negotiations of the draft final outcome of the special session.
Statements
JAMES PURCELL, Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in recent years the level of migration had remained high. Today there was an estimated 140 million migrants residing outside their country of birth, and approximately half of them living in developing countries. A further 30 million persons were estimated to be internally displaced. Agenda 21 recommended further research on how environmental factors interacted with socio-economic factors as a cause of migration and called for the development of programmes and projects for handling various types of migration, with special attention to women and vulnerable groups. His organization had sought to implement those recommendations by undertaking a research project this year in four regions of the world -- south Asia, the Arab region, sub-Saharan Africa and Central America and the Caribbean. It had also convened two major seminars focused exclusively on environmentally induced population displacements and environmental impacts resulting from mass migration. In the short term, in the migration field, the IOM would continue to be pressed to deal with the symptoms, to react to the consequences and to work to solve the many immediate problems.
JEAN-LOUIS ROY, Secretary-General of the Agence de la francophonie, said since Rio his organization had contributed to the implementation of Agenda 21, including by signing the Convention on Biological Diversity and playing an important role in the intergovernmental process leading towards the Convention to Combat Desertification. It had also set up programmes to strengthen national capacity through the mobilization and transfer of expertise in areas such as energy and the management of protected areas. In reviewing progress on Agenda 21, the francophone group of countries had stressed the importance of issues such as eradicating poverty, capacity-building, transfer of environmentally sound technology, forests, energy and water resources. Sustainable development would be the theme of the next summit of the francophone countries in Hanoi in November, in which Heads of State and Government would give renewed impulse to multilateral cooperation towards the achievement of sustainable development.
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HUMPHREY MAUD, Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General, said progress in making a transition to environmentally sustainable patterns of energy consumption and production had been particularly disappointing. With mounting scientific evidence of the impact of human activities on the world's climate, the need for substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions had grown even more urgent. Joint initiatives by the Commonwealth countries had helped pave the way for a successful review of forestry issues at the 1995 session of the Commission on Sustainable Development. Moreover, proposals made by the Commonwealth finance ministers in recent years had spurred the Bretton Woods institutions to tackle the problems of heavily indebted poor countries. The Commonwealth's programmes directed at capacity-building in developing countries and the transfer of technology they needed were indispensable to further progress on the Rio agenda.
MARIA JULIA ALSOGARAY, President of the third meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, said the complementarity of endeavours between Agenda 21, the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention to Combat Desertification and the Convention on Biological Diversity had been underscored at the meeting of the Conference of the Parties. Poverty, war and social instability were among the worst causes for the loss of biological diversity. Mismanagement, market distortions and lack of awareness were among the others. Meaningful implementation of the Convention required peace, social stability and mutual understanding as well as technological cooperation and appropriate resources in terms of both financial means and technology transfer.
HEITOR GURGULINO DE SOUZA, Rector of the United Nations University, said immediately following the Rio Summit, the University had constituted a high- level advisory team to prepare a report to define general directions and suggest courses of action for it. On the basis of the team's report a new programme on environmentally sustainable development had been developed and integrated into the University's regular programme. Its main focus was on capacity-building. The 10-year programme was articulated around three major themes: eco-restructuring for sustainable development; the management of natural resources; and environmental law and governance. The University had published more than 40 volumes of studies in the last five years on a large number of chapters of Agenda 21.
FRANCESCO FRANGIALLI, Secretary-General of the World Tourism Organization, said his organization's membership had now grown to 131 member States, in addition to associate members. More than 590 million international visitors were recorded for 1996 -- an increase of more than 30 per cent. By the year 2000 it was estimated that there would be more than 700 million travellers, and the number would continue to increase. The income of tourism throughout the world had amounted to $423 million -- an increase of more than 50 per cent in five years. That pace of growth should continue and made the
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recommendations of Agenda 21 very urgent and important to the sector. Issues such as employment, child exploitation and the environment, and the abuse of tourist sites had to be addressed. At the same time, it was important to recognize that tourism earned hard currency for poor countries, created jobs and had a strong ripple effect in the economy. The World Tourism Organization had a goal-oriented and balanced approach to tourism, he concluded.
DONALD JOHNSTON, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said although more nations were achieving economic growth through market-oriented development strategies, governments needed to deliver a policy mix to protect the environment, ensure social justice and promote stability. The OECD analyses indicated that globalization should have a generally positive effect on the global environment, provided appropriate polices were in place. Although direct investment flows had doubled in the last five years, they were targeted at relatively few countries. The special challenges of relatively few countries not yet able to participate in the growth of world trade and investment must be addressed urgently. The OECD had a comprehensive framework of polices and resources to reduce international marginalization and exclusion. Stressing the need for creative solutions and clean technologies to manage increasing industrialization and urbanization worldwide in a sustainable way, he said non-OECD countries were expected to triple their industrial output by 2010, and cleaner technologies in those countries would be crucial if sustainable development objectives were to be reached.
ROBERT PRIDDLE, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the body responsible for energy matters in the OECD, said the trend in energy consumption was shifting. Economic growth was now fastest outside the OECD. Energy-related CO2 emissions in developing countries were expected to double between 1990 and 2010, while the rise in OECD countries would be no more than 20 or 30 per cent even if no effective action was taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, carbon dioxide emissions could not be contained by action in the OECD alone. After the Rio Summit, the IEA had embraced the concept of sustainable development, embodying it in the "shared goals" for energy policy adopted by IEA ministers in 1993. Only last month, meeting in Paris, IEA ministers had accepted without question that industrialized countries should take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Further, they had committed themselves to seeking a positive outcome at Kyoto. In that context, energy pricing that better reflected costs provided both economic and environmental benefits. Subsidies should be reduced and eventually eliminated. Regulatory reform which provided for competitive markets would reduce emissions by improving efficiency.
MOSTAFA TOLBA (Egypt), Committee Chairman, commenting on the remarks by the IEA representative, said that the level from which emissions of developing countries would double was much lower in comparison to the current level of emissions of the developed countries. Therefore, a rise of 20 to 30 per cent for the developed countries was a significant rise.
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