DAILY BRIEFING ON SPECIAL SESSION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Press Briefing

DAILY BRIEFING ON SPECIAL SESSION OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Samsiah Abdul-Majid, the spokesman for the President of the General Assembly, began the briefing on the special session on the review of implementation of Agenda 21, by announcing that 23 speakers had addressed the plenary this morning and some 22 were expected to make statements this afternoon.

Also taking part in the press briefing were Jean-Claude Faby, Chief of the Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, and Michael Zammit-Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Continuing, Ms. Abdul-Majid said that yesterday it had been announced that Guinea-Bissau had paid its arrears. That meant 16 countries were now affected by Article 19 of the United Nations Charter and could not vote because of arrears in their assessed contributions to the Organization's budget.

Ms. Abdul-Majid said the Committee of the Whole had elected the following members to its bureau: John W. Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda), Czeslaw Wieckowski (Poland), Idunn Eidheim (Norway) and Bagher Asadi (Iran). The Committee had met in a formal session this morning and would hold informal consultations in parallel sessions this afternoon on the draft political statement and sectoral issues. This evening, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., the Committee would hold informal consultations on cross-sectoral issues.

The President would co-host a round-table lunch at 1 p.m. today with the World Business Council's on Sustainable Development, Ms. Abdul-Majid continued. An updated list of the approximately 35 participants of the round table was available in the Media Centre in Conference Room 1.

This morning, the President had attended the opening of the exhibition titled "Sustainable Development in Action", in the Public Lobby of the Headquarters Building, she said. The exhibition was organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Department of Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, the World Bank and Canada.

Ms. Abdul-Majid then read excerpts from the President's statement at the opening of the exhibition. He said, "All of us who take part in the intergovernmental debate process within the United Nations find our attention focused on the language, content, nuances and brackets of resolutions to support the implementation of Agenda 21. At times, it can seem frustrating and distant from the realities of all our countries. This exhibition, however, gives us a sense of reality, showing what can be done. It shows that the concerns, ideas and objectives around these intergovernmental processes can be translated into reality."

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The exhibition would be open until 5 p.m. on Friday, 27 June, and was quite interesting with an electric car as one of the attractions, Ms. Abdul- Majid added.

She told correspondents that an updated list of side events, press conferences and list of speakers was available in the Media Centre, and then announced the following events:

Today, one of the UNDP series of briefings on global progress, titled "Energy for the Future", would be held at 1:15 p.m. in the north-east corner of the Public Lobby. The World Health Organization (WHO) would hold a panel on health, environment and sustainable development at 1:15 p.m. in Conference Room 3. Also at 1:15 p.m., the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) would hold a briefing on a culture of peace and Agenda 21 in Conference Room 5.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) would hold a panel on population, women and the environment at 6:15 p.m. in Conference Room 3. The UNDP would also hold a high-level panel on capacity-building at 6:15 p.m. in the Economic and Social Council Chamber. There would also be a panel on sustainable tourism at 2 p.m. in Conference Room 4.

Tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., the Assembly President would receive the "Preserve Planet Earth Trophy" from Rotary International in the Public Lobby, she added.

A correspondent wanted to know if the United States was among the 16 countries which would not be able to vote because of non-payment of arrears. Ms. Abdul-Majid said it was not. Those countries which would not be able to vote had not paid their arrears to the budget up to two years of their assessment. The United States' arrears were below the two years accumulated amount.

How many journalists, non-governmental organizations and delegates were accredited for the special session? a correspondent asked. Ms. Abdul-Majid said that as of yesterday, there were 900 accredited journalists. In addition, there were about 1,000 non-governmental organizations accredited as of Friday. So far as delegations were concerned, she said she was not sure. There were at least six persons per delegation, and there were 180 delegations.

A correspondent wanted to know the Assembly President's reaction to the letter from Cambodia requesting assistance in bringing to justice persons responsible for war crimes in that country. Ms. Abdul-Majid said she would check with him.

Briefing correspondents on the current status of negotiations of the session's outcome, Mr. Faby said the Committee of the Whole would, this afternoon, begin informal discussion on the draft statement expected to be issued by the special session.

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Mr. Faby said that the process of negotiations on the draft final outcome of the special session had now been fairly decentralized. Two ministerial groups had been established to continue negotiations on the subjects of finance and forests. The ministerial group on finance was co-chaired by the Foreign Minister of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Minister for Development Cooperation of the Netherlands. The ministerial group on forests was co-chaired by the Minister for Natural Resources of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Minister for Housing, Spatial Planning and Environment of the Netherlands.

A meeting of the ministers of finance would be held at 3 p.m. today, he said. That would be followed by a meeting of the Contact Group on Forests, at 4:30 p.m., chaired by Mr. Asadi (Iran). A meeting on cross-sectoral issues, chaired by Mr. Ashe (Antigua and Barbuda), would be held from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Tomorrow, a meeting on cross-sectoral issues would be held at 10 a.m., in parallel with a ministerial meeting on forests, he said. Informal consultations on the draft statement would be held between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. In addition, sectoral issues would be discussed informally. Also, there would be a night meeting on cross-sectoral issues.

Replying to a question on when the negotiation process would be completed, Mr. Faby said it was very early to talk about the completion of the negotiation process.

Responding to another correspondent, Mr. Faby said last week informal meetings on the draft final outcome of the special session had been held. Right now, there were two sets of texts in front of the negotiators. One set of texts was seven-pages long and included amendments to it provided by governments at the beginning of the session or before last week. The second text was an attempt by Commission on Sustainable Development Chairman Mostafa Tolba (Egypt) and Vice-Chairman Monika Linn Locher (Switzerland) to examine the degree to which those amendments could lead to a consensual text.

Would a revised bracketed text be issued during the week? a correspondent asked. Mr. Faby said he would attempt to make a revised text available which would reflect agreements as the negotiations moved forward.

Was there a separate document available on negotiations on the subject of finance? a correspondent asked. Mr. Faby replied in the negative. The text on finance was essentially included in a number of chapters in the main text.

To what extent was the finance debate being dominated by the need for some sort of financial mechanism on the Desertification Convention? a correspondent asked. Mr. Faby said while that was an important point, the debate was not dominated by it. Finance had to be looked at as a package of

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issues. In the case of desertification, a meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention was forthcoming in September. The requisite number of ratifications to enable such a meeting was there. It was in that meeting, therefore, that the fine points of that particular issue under finance would be resolved.

Which were the countries included in the contact group on forests? a correspondent asked. Mr. Faby said he was not sure that it was a closed group.

What were the sticky points on the money and forest questions? a correspondent inquired. Mr. Faby said, on forests, the question was "to bind or not to bind". On finance, there were a number of sticky points. There was the official development assistance (ODA) question. What language would be adopted regarding the 0.7 per cent target? Would there be a specific time fixed when the reversal of the negative trend towards 0.7 per cent should occur?

Linked to those was the question of mobilization of domestic resources and private investment, he said. Was ODA to be considered a leverage to domestic investment? Should the question of ODA and domestic investment be considered separately? The question of a tax on aviation fuel was another one. The main concern of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China was that there was a considerable erosion of the commitments made at Rio. Their efforts were to redress what they considered an unsatisfactory evolution on finance.

Mr. Zammit-Cutajar, Executive Secretary of the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the subject of climate change was high on the agenda of the special session. It was one of the unresolved issues in the text and it had been one of the hotly debated topics in Denver at the meeting of the Group of Eight. That was due to the fact that the Convention opened for signature at Rio had been found to be inadequate by the parties, according to a finding of the Berlin Conference of the Parties held two years go. That Conference had set in motion a round of negotiations leading up to a result expected out of the third Conference of the Parties to be held in Kyoto in December. The aim of the negotiations was to strengthen the commitments of the developed countries which were parties to the Convention.

There were a lot of issues on the table, he said. The main issue was the reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases. The question was which gases to cut, by how much and by when. There was also the question as to which ones were measurable. The gases in question were carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. The question of when was a balance between a long target period, which gave industry the time to adjust, and a short target period, that imposed political accountability on the governments. In that respect, the Denver Communiqué had given a clue with the year 2010 indicated as a

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target date. So far as "how much" was concerned, the European Union had put forward a proposal for as much as a 15 per cent cut in the three abovementioned gases below 1990 levels by the year 2010. It had set an intermediate target of 7.5 per cent cut by the year 2005. The United States, Japan and Canada had not put a number on the table yet.

Subsidiary but important questions in the negotiations were the manner in which the cuts were to be made, he said. The Europeans were keen to have harmonized policies so that the impact on trade competitiveness of those measures would be the same among the reducing countries or among countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The United States was partisan to a flexible approach, which left each country to choose what was the best way for it to achieve the target. There were also proposals which would allow country A to buy emissions from country B, or invest in country B and take credit for the reduction in emissions resulting from the investment.

As to the question about who would undertake the cuts, he said the negotiations were about commitments on the part of developed countries. There were some among them who wanted to differentiate the depth of the cuts depending on their economic circumstances and the place of energy in their economies. Australia and Japan were among those. Others were against that approach if only because it was complicated to work out. The main political issue was the involvement, present or future, of developing countries, in a global strategy to reduce emissions.

The course in emissions in developing countries was clear, he said. At some time early next century, the aggregate emissions of developing countries would surpass those of developed countries. On the other hand, the emissions per head in developed countries were and would remain much higher for a long time. There was also the timing issue as to when developing countries should come on board to make a commitment on greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, there was the question as to whether some developing countries would come on board voluntarily in response to financial and technological incentives.

In response to a question on the venue of negotiations, he said the Kyoto Conference was a staging point in a much longer road. Negotiations for it were taking place in Bonn. There were two remaining rounds before Kyoto. In addition, there was a lot of informal activity. The Denver Summit was an example of that.

Was the United States the only country taking the position that developing countries should also make some sort of a commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions? a correspondent asked. Mr. Zammit-Cutajar said it was not the only country, but it was the only country which had taken that position very strongly. Moreover, it was the country which had articulated that position most strongly in its formal negotiating process. New Zealand was another of the countries which had taken a similar position.

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