Environment problems highlighted

Press, 12 July 1988, Page 8

Environment problems highlighted

NZPA-Reuter Oslo A unique United Nations conference has highlighted an array of threats to the world’s environment and economic growth — but the question remains whether it will achieve anything else. The Secretary-Gen-eral, Javier Perez de Cuellar, and leaders of almost al! the United Nation’s specialised agencies, agreed at a week-end meeting in Oslo to set up a top level task force to lead the fight against economic decay and pollution. Delegates at the conference, the first of its kind outside the United Nation’s New York headquarters, conceded that* calls for global action on

poverty, waste dumping, depletion of natural resources and climatic change were not enough on their own. “We cannot achieve our aims without the active support and commitment of all Governments and international oganisations,” said the - Norwegian Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, who hosted the conference. One delegate, who asked not to be named, said, “No-one in their right mind would disagree with the aim of using the world’s resources properly. “But everything we have said will just amount to noble words on scraps of paper if Governments continue

to ignore the problems and simply pursue their own local interests.” The World Bank president, Barber Conable, who attended the meet-

ing with the International Monetary Fund chairman, Michel Camdessus, voiced scepticism over Government commitments. “The problem for many countries is to free resources for implementing any kind of programme,” Mr Conable told Reuters during the meeting. “That will be the major stumbling block.” Ms Brundtland, who chaired a United Nations commission on environment and development which published a major report last year, reacted sharply to reporters suggesting that the meeting had achieved little. “You can tell the world that it should be

disappointed if you like,” she told a news conference on Sunday. “We are not. We have succeeded in getting the various United Nations agencies to co-operate.” She said a new global ethic was needed to safeguard the environment for future generations. The two-day meeting was the first review of progress made since Ms Brundtland’s commission produced its report entitled “Our Common Future.” The report coined the phrase “sustainable development” to describe a programme of world economic progress linked to preserving the Earth’s natural resources.