UN New York, Press Floor, March 28, 2005

I picked up today the following press release from the Secretariat.

“SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN MESSAGE TO CONFERENCE, CALLS FOR PARADIGM SHIFT
TOWARDS ‘GREEN GROWTH’ TO ACHIEVE TRULY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT”.

Above refers to a message from Mr. Kofi Annan to the 5-th Ministerial
Conference on Environment and Development in the Asia and the Pacific
held
these days in Seoul, Korea. The message includes:

“Your region as a whole has achieved spectacular economic growth. At
the
same time, economic growth is placing increasing pressure on
environmental
sustainability. Economic growth must continue, since roughly two
thirds of
the world’s poor live in the region. But the prevailing model - “grow
first
and clean up later” is not the answer. To achieve truly Sustainable
Development, we need a paradigm shift towards “green growth”. It is
encouraging that this is the time of your conference. Indeed, the
goals of
poverty reduction and environmental sustainability are not mutually
exclusive, but can and must be pursued in tandem”.

Above paragraph and the title bring the UN back to the height of the
1992
Rio UNCED - the ideals of Environment and Development that created the
concepts of sustainable development and sustainability. Since Rio it
was
all downhill and this message from the SG, after above start, is also
downhill. It retreats to the concept of the Millennium Development
Goals,
but at least in a more tempered way - “Your achievements offer useful
lessons as we look ahead to the September Summit at the United Nations
in
New York, at which world leaders will review not only progress towards
the
Goals (he means here the MDGs), but also implementation of all aspects
of
the Millennium Declaration”.

Let us hope that some more shake up at the Secretariat may move us
further
towards the SD goals that could have achieved much more then the MDG
rhetoric born at the Johannesburg Summit in an attempt to placate the
oil
folks.

Some of this was clearly discussed earlier in SustainabiliTank.info,
and now
exemplified by those in the Secretariat and their outside contacts,
the
Volcker Committee mentioned for admonition. Seemingly much of what is
rotten
at the UN, and outside the UN, is oil-based and comes from people
representing oil interests. This first encouraging message from the SG
may
indeed bloom if Mr. Mark Moloch Brown, in his effort to bring change at
the
Secretariat, stops using tooth-picks and switches to the use of a
shovel.
Good luck - to him, to the Secretary-General and to us.