Rio talk a starting point for global partnership
KUALA LUMPUR, Mon. —The Earth Summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro in June should be a starting point to formulate new global partnership towards the 21st century to safeguard the earth.
Japanese Minister in charge of Global Environmental Problems Mr Shozaburo Nakamura told delegates at the plenary session of the Second Ministerial Conference of Developing Countries on Environment and Development that the North and South countries must reach a global consensus in Rio.
"The developed countries should change their urban structure, transportation system, and lifestyle from the current culture aimed at economic growth based on mass production, mass consumption and mass disposal.
"The developing countries on the other hand should pursue the integration of environment and development and promote policies on the issues," he said.
He said Japan was able to play a significant role to cope with the global environmental issues and it was one of the responsibilities that it should assume.
Japan’s economic activity had been developed under the national principle of peaceful co-existence and has become one of the major and most sophisticated economies in the world.
"Japan experienced serious environmental problem in the past and it has developed and accumulated various technologies and know-how in the process of overcoming these problems," he said.
He added that Japan would actively promote technology transfer to developing countries through co-operation with the, United Nations Economic Programme International Environmental Technology Centre which would be established in Japan this year and through environmental co-operation.
Pakistan Minister for Environment and Urban Affairs Mr Anwar Saifullah Khan said developing countries would have to assess and examine very carefully the financial resources offered to them against the bulk and weight of the Agenda 21 programmes.
"It would be futile to carry home the dry bones of Agenda 21 without the flesh of the financial resources. Our strategy is to press for a decision at Rio on the issues of financial resources, he said in his statement during the plenary session this evening.
Anwar said without the provision of new and additional financial resources, transfer of environmentally sound technology on concessional and preferential terms to developing countries and the alleviation of poverty, Agenda 21 with its complexities would place new and heavy burden on them.
"Developing countries neither possess the requisite financial resources nor the technological know-how to comply to the demands of this document," he said.
Pakistan, Anwar said, felt adequate attention had not been paid in the recent preparatory committee meeting (Prepcom4) to the development concerns of the developing countries.
"The most crucial issue of the provision of new and additional financial resources to the developing countries as stipulated in Resolution 44/228 had regrettably met with the most determined opposition by the Developed World," he added.
Source : New Straits Times, April 28, 1992
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