European Union responds to call by UN Division for Sustainable Development to submit views for Secretary General’s report on a possible Earth Summit in 2012
28th May 2009: In a letter to Tariq Bunari, Director of the Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) within UN DESA, the Czech Republic on behalf of the European Union has announced that it is ‘open to discuss, with the wider UN membership, the UN Secretariat and all other relevant stakeholders, the possibility of convening a high level event on sustainable development.
The letter states clearly that in the event of the hosting of such an event, due regard should be paid to the timelines of other processes critical to sustainable development, including the Commission on Sustainable Development, the Millennium Development Goals and the Rio Conventions – the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
Suggestions are made regarding the focus of a high level event, with specific reference to the importance of addressing contributing issues that ‘boost the green economy concept’. It also calls for policy coherence at ‘national and international levels across policy sectors’. The letter further points out that the essential prerequisites for sustainable development are poverty eradication, sustainable consumption and production and protecting and managing the natural resource base of economic and social development.
Read the full letter click here.