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These are quotes from the Oxford Earth Summit and might be useful to those interested in the water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity agenda under discussion in Jo'burg... these and 25 other expert talks are available from as mp3 audio files from www.earthsummit.info/oxsum.html. Best wishes...Matt
WATER: Ravi Narayanan, Director of Water Aid (Oxford Earth Summit.... "There are 1.2 billion people without access to clean water and 2.4 billion without adequate sanitation." "Every day 6000 children die of diarrhoreal diseases." "80% of the disease load in developing countries is caused by water- borne diseases." "It would cost £11 billion per year (the same amount as is spent of petfood in the US and EU each year), for 10 years, to halve the number of people with poor sanitation."
ENERGY/CLIMATE: Dr. Richard Jones, UK Met Ofice...
"A global surface temperature increase of 0.7°C has taken place over the past 100 years. Most of the increase has been due to human activities." "A 3°C increase (in global temperature) is likely by the end of this century (4x the last century)." "There will be substantial impacts in many if not all sectors." "There is large uncertainty in (model) predictions but also good consistency in large-scale patterns." "Enormous cuts in emissions would be required to stabilise the climate at that of the present day."
HEALTH: Nigel Cross, Director International Institute for Environment and Development..."At Rio a global aid budget target of $125 billion was set. However in 1992 the budget was $69 billion and by 2002 had been reduced to $53 billion." "Most US aid goes to Israel + Egypt. The remainder, given to the rest of the world, amounts to the same sum given by Denmark."
AGRICULTURE: Prof. Norman Myers (Blue Planet Prize recipient)... "Subsidies for agriculture foster over-loading of croplands, leading to erosion of topsoil, pollution from synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and release of greenhouse gases among other adverse effects." "Subsidies for fossil fuels aggravate pollution effects such as acid rain, urban smog and global warming." "Perverse subsides amount to at least $2 trillion a year. This total is bigger than the economies of all but the three largest nations." "The reduction of perverse subsidies would generally do more for both our environments and our economies than through any other single measure."
BIODIVERSITY: Dr. Rosie Trevelyan, Director Tropical Biology Association..."Countries rich in biodiversity tend to poor in the resources necessary for describing, assessing and managing it." "We need to strengthen and support scientific expertise in tropical countries to ensure the future of their ecosystems."
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: Sir Richard Jolly, UN Development Programme..."Sustainable development is defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." "How do we mobilise talk into action?" "Tackling poverty in an environmentally sustainable way is part of the solution... we need to do this by listening more." "Environment and development MUST be tackled together." "We need improved global governance with regard to representation."

Posted by Matt Prescott on September 1, 2002 02:13 PM

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