AIDS, Hunger, Race, Income

Johannesburg conference deciding crucial issues

by Renee Kjartan

In late August and September, government leaders from around the world are scheduled to meet in Johannesburg, South Africa to deal with "devastating problems that threaten the health and prosperity of our world," according to World Watch magazine. The meeting will sum up what progress has been made by United Nations member countries since the first Earth Summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago. Problems the world body will most likely address include the following, according to World Watch:

• the AIDS crisis, particularly as it affects Africa;
• mass extinction of species;
• gender, race and income
• global warming;
• a looming crisis in access to clean water;
• the debt burden in the developing countries that reached $2.5 trillion in 2000.

Some successes since the Rio meeting include reduction of ozone-depleting CFCs by 87 percent between 1987-1997, with the ozone hole slowly healing itself; reduction by half of child deaths due to diarrhea between 1990 and 2000; and steering taxing and spending toward sustainability as many European countries are starting to do. Worldwatch has presented its own Goals for Sustainable Development by 2015, which include the following:

Environmental Goals

• meet and extend the Kyoto Protocol goals for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases;
• end logging of world's natural forests;
• set urban air quality guidelines;
• reduce soil erosion;
• stop overpumping aquifers

Health and Education Goals

• reduce poverty, hunger and lack of access to clean water;
• reduce maternal mortality;
• universal completion of primary school;
• halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases

Economic Goals

• implement systems of national accounts that internalize environmental costs; eliminate subsidies that encourage the extraction
of virgin materials and fossil fuels;
• encourage reductions in materials used in industrial countries;
• foster efficient energy systems;
• encourage an ethic of sufficiency in consumption.

For more information on the world conference, go to www.worldwatch.org or to the UN site: www.un.org/News.