US team chief hard put to clean up country's image
WASHINGTON — The Earth Summit convened on Wednesday with the head of the United States delegation having the most difficult task of cleaning up his country’s image.
The US has found itself isolated increasingly in the weeks before the summit, the result of its positions on key issues to be agreed upon at the summit.
Delegates and environmentalists have criticized President George Bush widely for watering down the global-warming treaty that is to be signed at the summit and for refusing to sign another that would protect the planet’s animals and plants.
On the summit’s opening day, Mr William Reilly, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency who is leading the US delegation, said that facing the barrage of criticism had been a "character-building" experience for him.
In a formal address to the summit, he tried to deflect criticism of the US by holding up his country’s successes in preserving the environment as well as its failures as examples to be examined by other nations.
"Our pollution levels of air and water are sharply down compared with 20 years ago, even as our economy has grown. Many of our rivers run cleaner now than they have at any time in the past 100 years," Mr Reilly said.
But he noted that America’s failures could also be instructive.
"We offer our mistakes, in contaminating large numbers of sites with hazardous waste, waste that we are now cleaning up at tremendous expense."
At a news conference later, he spoke about Monday’s initiative by the White House to boost funding for forest conservation in developing countries by US$150 million (S$243 million).
It might not seem like a lot in comparison with other countries, he said, but "it’s all we have in a year of Budget problems". — Reuter, AP, UPI.
Source : The Straits Times, June 5, 1992
Recycling Point Dot Com
(C) 2000 All Rights Reserved