World Leaders to Attend U.N. Summit

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, July 10, 2002

World Leaders to Attend U.N. Summit

The United Nations is expecting about 100 world leaders at a summit next month aimed at cutting poverty and protecting the environment.

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

The United Nations is expecting about 100 world leaders at a summit next month aimed at cutting poverty and protecting the environment.

Ten years after the Earth Summit in Brazil first focused global attention on the need to preserve the environment, the leaders will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 4 with a much broader agenda.

The aim of the World Summit on Sustainable Development is to solidify commitments made in the past year on opening markets to developing countries and increasing financing. Participants are to adopt a program that will achieve concrete results while preserving the environment.

U.N. Undersecretary-General Nitin Desai told a news briefing Tuesday that the United Nations is hoping to match the turnout of about 100 presidents and prime ministers at the 1992 Brazil summit.

Among those who have accepted invitations to the summit include British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, Mexican President Vicente Fox, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and most African leaders, Desai said.

The United States has not yet announced who would head its delegation.

The Johannesburg summit is expected to focus on the ambitious goals adopted by world leaders at the U.N. Millennium Summit in September 2000.

By 2015, the leaders pledged to halve the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, achieve universal primary education, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and start to reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

But Johannesburg will also focus on other threats: a third of the world's more than 6 billion people live on less than two dollars a day, use of fossil fuels is rising rapidly, natural resources are being consumed faster than they can be replaced, three-quarters of the world's fishing areas are fished-out, mountain glaciers are slowly melting away, and the world's forests are shrinking.

Desai, who is secretary-general of the Johannesburg summit, said negotiators from nearly 200 countries have reached agreement on 75 percent of the development blueprint for the next decade �� including giving priority to water and sanitation, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity.

But he said the most difficult issues remain to be settled, including disagreements over requirements for good government in developing countries and whether people should be asked to take action on issues such as climate change before there is complete scientific certainty.

Agencies

Questions?Comments? Click here

U.N. Security Council Extends Bosnia Mission

UN, Iraq Begin New Round of Talks in Vienna

Iraq Vows to Foil Hostile US Plans ( 3 Messages)

China to Boost the Service Sector to Create More Jobs ( 105 Messages)

Chinese Satellite TV Hijacked by Falun Gong Cult ( 3 Messages)

Shanghai Plans Asia's Biggest Shopping Center ( 64 Messages)

Ways China's Wealth Flows into the US ( 5 Messages)