Sustainability begins with Ultra consciousness; sustainable development organically speaking.

Environment: the planet in danger

Sustainable development, or how to reconcile human needs and the preservation of ecological, social and economic balances. Within the framework of the G8, France wishes to make its partners aware of the necessity to enforce the measures in this area adopted in September 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. By Muriel Denis, journalist

After several years indifference to the problems of our planet, the international community finally woke up as the 21st century dawned. Three occasions have demonstrated the wish of industrialized countries to promote a different model for growth and development to that adopted over the last fifty years, in order to limit the burden of risk that human activities are inflicting on the Earth: global warming, pollution and the exhaustion of natural resources. To prevent, too, poor countries from continuing to fall by the wayside.

Under the banner of the UN, first there was the Millennium Summit in New York in September 2000, when ambitious targets to reduce poverty were set. Next, in March 2002, at the Monterrey conference in Mexico, the developed countries promised to increase their public development aid. Lastly, the Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002, ten years after the Rio Summit, stressed the necessity of moving toward ecologically responsible growth. In Monterrey as in Johannesburg, the international community recognized that public generosity and action could not, on their own, solve the planet’s ills. It was essential to mobilize the corporate world. This is the general line of the "Type II Initiatives" adopted in Johannesburg.

In the South African capital, the French president’s warning cry did not go unnoticed. "Our house is burning down and we are looking away. The disfigured, over-exploited natural world is no longer capable of recovery and we refuse to admit it. Mankind is suffering. It is suffering from bad development, in both the north and south, and we are unconcerned. The Earth and the human race are in peril and we are all responsible for it," stressed Jacques Chirac. Since then, France has been fully committed, acting at both European and international level, as one of the signatory States to the UN Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol on the Reduction of Greenhouse Gasses, testifying to a genuine desire to change the ways things are.

French initiatives

France, which argues for the creation of a world environmental body, in January 2003 set up a National Council for Sustainable Development, which includes environmental and consumer organizations, trade unions and businesses. Its purpose is to draw up a strategy for the country and for the support of developing countries. In addition, in collaboration with Sweden and the United Nations’ Development Programme (UNDP), France has set up an international working party which deals with the question of "world public assets"*; which should enlighten decision-makers about the priorities for international cooperation. Lastly, in his capacity as president of the G8, President Jacques Chirac is determined to promote a number of other projects this year.

The protection of natural resources and good management of water and energy figure among these priority objectives. At present, more than 1 billion people have no access to drinking water and 2.5 billion have neither sanitation nor modern forms of energy. The consequences are tragic: lack of drinking water is the most common cause of death in the world. Several million people die every year because of contaminated water, two million of whom are children under five years of age.

In Johannesburg, the international community undertook to halve the percentage of the population without drinking water by 2015. The same target has been set in the matter of sanitation. As part of this drive, France wishes to promote an "international charter for access to water and sanitation." In the area of energy, it intends to help its Southern partners to develop clean energy supplies.

Lastly, it supports the concept of ethical, social and environmental responsibility of all economic players and hopes for the general adoption of minimum standards in these areas.

Making economic players responsible

French legislation already requires companies to provide detailed reports on the environmental and social consequences of their activities. The necessity of making economic players responsible is particularly pertinent today in the area of maritime safety, after the successive disasters of the Erika and the Prestige oil tankers on the European Atlantic coast. In December 2002, France took an emergency unilateral decision to keep hazardous vessels away from its coasts and to strengthen its controls. Lastly, it successfully argued for the creation of a European agency for maritime safety and is now battling for a reform of the law on this subject within the framework of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). All these are complex matters requiring determination and co-operation on the part of States.

(courtesy: Label France Magazine, No:50 April 2003, Embassy of France, Kathmandu)

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