Economic and Social Council

Just one day shy of its anticipated deadline, the Commission on Sustainable Development today heard from experts in four intensive round table meetings, and held subsequent discussions aimed at advancing the adoption tomorrow of a strong outcome document for the Commission’s 2011 policy session.

A panel of environmental experts laid out ways to curb the consumption patterns of individuals and businesses in order to preserve the world’s precious resources, at a press conference held today at United Nations Headquarters.

Twenty years after participants to the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro first recognized that unsustainable consumption and production patterns formed the biggest threat to the Earth’s capacity to satisfy human needs, that challenge continued to loom large and finding a framework to control it must be seen as a strategic priority, the Commission on Sustainable Development was told today, as it opened its three-day high-level segment.

The Commission on Sustainable Development had reached a critical moment in its negotiations to develop concrete policy recommendations, delegates were told today as the body discussed progress made by its working groups more than halfway through its annual two-week session.

Three days before the high-level segment of the nineteenth Commission on Sustainable Development, Under-Secretary-General Sha Zukang and Chairman László Borbély highlighted the session’s crucial focus on the need for more efficient use of natural resources during a Headquarters press conference today. “We are focusing on concrete ways to use resources more efficiently,” said Mr. Sha, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

Meeting briefly at the end of the first week of its annual two-week session, the Commission on Sustainable Development was urged by its Chair to do its utmost — and perhaps go even further — to reach the goal of shaping critical global policies on transport; chemicals; waste management; mining; and a 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns.

“The Asia-Pacific region is both a growth driver and anchor of stability for the global economy,” said Amr Nour, Director of the Regional Commissions New York Office, at a press conference to launch the 2011 report of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

Whether measured by greenhouse gas concentrations, deforestation rates or declining fish stocks, current unsustainable consumption and production patterns threatened to exceed the capacity of global ecosystems and the world community must accelerate efforts to pursue environmentally sound economic growth and “meet our commitments to future generations”, a top United Nations official told the Commission on Sustainable Development today, as it opened its nineteenth session.

In its last session before the “Rio+20” Conference in 2012, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development will meet from 2-13 May to recommend policy options aimed at promoting more efficient, equitable and safer use of the Earth’s resources.

A shift in global educational priorities — namely, going beyond access to improve the quality of schooling and promote creative policies — should be a key focus during the “signature” meeting of the Economic and Social Council later this year, regional representatives and experts said today.