JOHANNESBURG, Sept 4 (Hina) - The UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg ended on Wednesday evening with the adoption of a Political Declaration according to which 190 country participants confirmed obligations
from an Action Plan adopted earlier to implement the Agenda 21, a key document for the largest gathering held in the history of the United Nations.
JOHANNESBURG, Sept 4 (Hina) - The UN World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg ended on Wednesday evening with the
adoption of a Political Declaration according to which 190 country
participants confirmed obligations from an Action Plan adopted
earlier to implement the Agenda 21, a key document for the largest
gathering held in the history of the United Nations. #L#
The gathering, which tended to define plans to thwart poverty and to
protect the environment, drew more than 100 heads of state of
governments amongst whom was Croatian President Stjepan Mesic and
over 21 thousand representatives of world governments and
parliaments, international institutions, non-government
organisations, multinational corporations and journalists. The
summit was officially closed late in the evening by Thabo Mbeki, the
President of the host country South Africa.
The Action Plan should contribute to efforts to relieve poverty and
at the same time to stop the destruction of the natural environment
on the planet. The Action Plan was adopted in the afternoon during
the closing session of the summit.
However, trying to come to an agreement over the Political
Declaration lasted some time after that foreseen to close the
gathering in the Sandton Conference Centre. In the end only 32 of
the initial 69 articles of the text were adopted which no longer
mentions the earlier call by the UN General Assembly to supervise
the national implementation of the agreement but instead that it
obliges to joint action.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan remarked that Johannesburg did not
bring what was expected but he expressed his satisfaction that the
summit once again pointed out the significance of sustainable
development and the awareness of maintaining a balance between
development and environment protection.
Russia and Canada announced on Wednesday that they would ratify the
Kyoto Protocol which fills the ratification quota of 55 per cent of
countries with the same percentage of share in the transmission of
gasses to the glass house affect - which means that the agreement
can be fully implemented.
The United States managed to impose its attitude over a series of
compromising provisions of the Action Plan however the
announcement by Russia and Canada that they would ratify the
Protocol dealt a blow to the efforts by George Bush's
Administration to postpone the commencement of the application of
the Kyoto protocol.
The Croatian delegation participated at the concluding sessions of
the summit headed by President Stjepan Mesic who on Wednesday held
bilateral talks with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and
Albanian Premier Fatos Nano.
(hina) sp ms