csdngo/1997/is/3/rev.3
25 february 1997
original: english

We call on governments for:

NGO Access to Earth Summit II and the General Assembly Ensure that the arrangements for the UN General Assembly Special Session are based on the newly revised Arrangements for Consultation with Non-Governmental Organizations - 1996/31 - and that these arrangements should apply to strengthening NGO access to and participation in the General Assembly and its committees.

We also call upon governments for the following commitments:

1 Sectoral Issues

1.1 Climate Change: Endorse a legally binding CO2 reduction target of 20% from 1990 levels by the year 2005, and commensurate reductions of other greenhouse gases, to be agreed at Kyoto, December 1997.

1.2 Forests: Agree to set up subsidiary machinery (a Sub-Commission of the CSD) to review progress on the implementation of the proposals for action for the International Panel on Forests (IPF), relevant sections of Agenda 21 and the Rio Forest Principles and to focus on a solution orientated agenda reporting annually to the CSD High-Level Segment. Also agree on the protection of primary old growth, ancient forests including rainforests, boreal and temperate forests.

1.3 Chemicals: Commit to a legally binding instrument on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) that will focus on 'reducing and eliminating' them, not just controlling them; come to an agreement on Prior Informed Consent and a global harmonized system for the classification and labeling; and develop a Framework Chemicals Convention without delaying the expeditious negotiation of a treaty on POPs.

1.4 Oceans: Establish an Intergovernmental Panel on Oceans to prepare a comprehensive scientific assessment on the state of the oceans and the necessary policy recommendations, drawing on efforts by UNEP and GESAMP - Joint Group of Experts on Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution - in this field; the Law of the Sea treaty now in force should also be considered as a policy dialogue forum; immediate action is necessary to redress problems of excess of fishing capacity, wasteful fishing practices, and unsustainable aquaculture. Governments must also agree to protect the deep ocean.

1.5 Freshwater: Agree to negotiate a global framework agreement on Freshwater, making it a national and international priority, while taking into account relevant expertise such as UNEP's regional seas programme.

1.6 Energy: Develop and promote sustainable energy policies that reflect the true costs of fossil fuels; substantially increase funding for energy conservation, renewable energy, and energy efficiency programmes; and phase out nuclear power.

1.7 Transport: Give priority to the allocation of road space for public and non-motorized transport, support car-free areas in cities, apply the "polluter pays principle" to transport to reflect the true social costs of motorized travel; and promote land use planning which reduces the need to travel by car.

1.8 Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security: Promote long term food and nutritional security through developing partnerships with farmers, fishers and grass roots NGOs to achieve ecologically sound local food production systems.

1.9 Biotechnology: The dangers to health and environment posed by the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms are increasing daily. The CSD should strongly support the immediate adoption and implementation of an ecologically sound Biosafety protocol within the Convention on Biological Diversity.

1.10 Biodiversity: All governments should ratify the Biodiversity Convention by the end of 1997; take immediate action to prevent further destruction of biodiversity and habitats, while providing for human needs in a sustainable fashion.

2 Cross Sectoral Issues

2.1 Access to Resources:

2.1.12.1.2 Aid: Replenish and increase the GEF; fulfil the commitment to the 0.7% GNP target for aid by 2005; ensure all aid is focused to the implementation of the agreements of Rio and of the other recent global conferences.

2.1.32.1.4 New Financial Mechanisms: Establish an Intergovernmental Panel on Finance for Sustainable Development (or a Sub-Commission of the CSD) to make proposals for new financial mechanisms; review the impact of processes such as privatization and free trade on local communities; establish an environmental surcharge on aviation fuel on international flights, with revenues to be channeled into mechanisms such as the GEF and UNDP's Capacity 21.

2.1.52.1.6 Subsidies: Eliminate environmentally damaging subsidies; regulate international capital flows more strongly; increase transparency and prevent corruption and abuse of all aid and national funds and the distortion of national sustainable development priorities; cut and redirect military spending.

2.1.72.1.8 Debt Cancellation: Commit to make major debt cancellation announcements at the Special Session, as it is a critical centerpiece of the Rio formula, and explain to the public the relationship of debt cancellation to stemming environmental degradation and ending the cycle of poverty.

2.1.92.1.10 Trade Embargoes: Support the creation of mechanisms to offset the effect of trade embargoes not sanctioned by the United Nations on the sustainable economic and environmental development of affected countries.

2.2 Sustainable Consumption and Production: Set national natural resource consumption targets (e.g. based on the environmental space with equity approach) to meet the basic needs and enhanced quality of life for all. Promote socially and ecologically sound patterns of production and consumption through both an 'efficiency' and a 'sufficiency' revolution. This could include awareness raising and empowerment, technological, financial measures such as: national ecological footprint analysis; provision of accurate product information to all consumers; resource and energy efficiency in production and consumption; ecologically sound purchasing and product design; elimination of subsidies for damaging advertising; and establishing national Cleaner Production centers.

2.3 Trade: Establish an Intergovernmental Panel, or Sub-Commission, of the CSD on Trade and Sustainable Development. The Panel will inter alia, monitor the World Trade Organization to ensure that sustainable development goals and multilateral environmental agreements are strengthened rather than undermined by trade practices.

2.4 Poverty: Coordinate the outcome of the World Summit on Social Development on the integration of poverty strategies into Sustainable Development Strategies. Countries should publish their indicators on poverty and their strategies, including the elimination of structural adjustment policies, to eliminate poverty by the year 2000 in time for the General Assembly review of the Copenhagen Summit.

2.5 Small Island Developing States: Finance the implementation of the Programme of Action of the 1994 Global Conference on Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States.

2.6 Education: Recognize the critical importance of lifelong education and empowerment for sustainable living to the achievement of the goals of Chapter 36 of Agenda 21. Reverse the reduction of education budgets worldwide and affirm the need to focus educational curricula on sustainability goals.

3 Emerging Issues

3.1 Corporate Accountability: Seek greater corporate accountability to regulatory bodies and affected communities, while establishing mechanisms to monitor and assess corporate practices through a Sub-Commission of the CSD.

3.2 Local Agenda 21: Encourage all national governments to support national associations of local authorities in partnership with NGOs and other major groups to establish Local Agenda 21 campaigns.

3.3 Indicators: Recognize the need to use appropriate sustainable development indicators appropriately as a tool for community decision making; taking into account that: a) data must be objective as possible; b) all 'interests', including beneficiaries, must be involved - everyone who is impacted, particularly grass roots women.

3.4 Womenþs Access to Resources: We pledge to remove legislative, policy, administrative, and customary barriers to women's equal rights to natural resources, including access to and control over land and other forms of property, credit, inheritance, information and appropriate new technology.

3.5 Tourism: Establish and monitor sustainable tourism development policies and regulations. Finance sustainable tourism development, including infrastructure and training. UNEP's industry office to act as a coordinating body for governmental non-governmental and private bodies.

3.6 Military: Seek greater urgency and accountability in the cleanup of military toxic waste, and agree an expedited schedule for negotiating a global ban on the production and use of nuclear weapons.

3.7 Occupied Peoples: Seek to empower ethno-cultural groups currently subsisting under occupation by foreign national powers. Provisions must be made for access to and utilization of natural resources central to social and cultural autonomy and economic sustainable development.

4 Institutional and Legal Issues

4.1 UNEP: Renew and strengthen UNEP mandate to: (a) adopt a new governance model for UNEP with an Executive Board of Ministers meeting between Governing Councils; (b) adopt further reforms consistent with the Nairobi Declaration adopted at Governing Council 19, with such reforms reviewed and agreed at the 52nd General Assembly and UNEP Governing Council 20; and (c) submit regular reports to the CSD on priority activities and future program plans.

4.2 Reporting: Call on CSD to establish a process of peer-reviewed assessment of each country's performance on the implementation of sustainable development building on the model on work done by OECD.

4.3 Chair Elections: The Chair of the CSD should be elected at the beginning of each Commission session, take part in the Session, and assume office from the conclusion of the Session through the end of the next Session of the CSD.

4.4 High-Level: ECOSOC should convene regular joint high-level segments of the CSD with other relevant Commissions (e.g. Social Development).

4.5 CSD Agenda 1998-2001: Reduce the agenda of the CSD so that it focusses on the following: chemicals, forests, oceans, tourism, energy, transport, poverty, trade, finance, freshwater, capacity-building, sustainable consumption and production, technology transfer, education, agriculture, and human settlements.

4.6 Earth Summit III: Convene a Special Session of the General Assembly in 2002 to review the progress and roadblocks to sustainable development. This Special Session should be held at the highest level.

4.7 Integrated Monitoring: Establish through the CSD an integrated comprehensive framework - making effective use of modern information and communications technology - for systematic monitoring of the implementation of all the Rio agreements as well as the agreements of the other recent global conferences.

4.8 Coordination: Ensure a much more effective coordination of governmental positions in each of the different fora they are involved in.

4.9 High-Level Advisory Board: Abolish the Secretary General's High-Level Advisory Board and to streamline the relationship of the Committee on Natural Resources with the CSD.

4.10 Habitat: Support the strengthening of the Centre for Human Settlements as the UN coordinator of all relevant work on sustainable human settlements through the partnership concept for implementation of the Habitat Agenda.

4.11 Health: We urge governments to address the threats to health arising from unsustainable, economic, environmental and social development. Sources of these threats include unsound diet, sewage, air quality, water quality, biodiversity and habitat destruction, unexploded ordinance and land mines and production of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

5 Partnership and Major Groups

5.1 Dialogues: Continue the formal Dialogue Sessions between major groups and Governments through the next five year programme of the CSD and convene Major Group Dialogue Sessions at the CSD Intersessional Meetings beginning in 1998.

5.2 New Partners: Extend the concept of major groups to a partnership model as developed in the Habitat Agenda and grant partner / major group status to parliamentarians, older persons, and the education community.

5.3 Indigenous Peoples: Adopt the principles in the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and the creation of a permanent indigenous forum at the UN.

5.4 Gender: A pledge to enhance all governance structures, global regional, national and local, through the next century by adhering to the fundamental principles of equal representation and accountability; a pledge to achieve gender balance in governance, expanding, enhancing and improving affirmative action programs or other incentives that will encourage and support the leadership and involvement of women in political decision-making; a pledge to support equitable gender participation in all aspects of the implementation of Agenda 21.

5.5 Youth: Call for governments to report on programs to implement Agenda 21 commitments on youth and to renew their commitment to involve youth in all levels of decision-making by including accountable youth leaders on their national delegations and in other processes and to increase support for North-South grassroots youth partnership.

5.6 Older Persons: Recognize the critical importance of the growing global aging population in relation to sustainability and include older persons as a major group.

5.7 Inclusion: Recognize that discrimination on the basis of race, gender, economic status, ethnic background, religion, political belief, sexual orientation, age and disability continue to prevent the full participation of many social groups in developing and implementing strategies for sustainable development. Address these obstacles by implementing measures inter alia: to confront prejudice and hatred through educational programmes and relevant changes in national curricula; invest in the empowerment and capacity building of marginalized groups; remove structural and legal impediments to the fully inclusive participation of all social groups.

For More Information:

The NGO Steering Committee for CSD was established at the Commission for Sustainable Development in 1994 to facilitate the involvement of NGOs and other major groups, where appropriate, at the CSD. Membership of the steering committee is determined in annual elections held at the CSD, and includes Major Groups, grassroots organizations, regional, national and global NGOs and networks. Our work includes facilitating NGO Working Groups, providing support for participation of southern and eastern NGO representatives, and organizing facilities which strengthen the voices of NGOs in the sustainable development debate. The Steering Committee is facilitating activities around the CSD Intersessional, the CSD V, and Earth Summit II.

More information is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.igc.apc.org/habitat/csd-97 or via email from summit97@igc.apc.org

Or contact:
Southern Co-Chair: Esmeralda Brown
391 Eastern Parkway, 2 Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11216 USA
tel +1 212 682-3633
fax +1 212 682-5354

Northern Co-Chair: Michael McCoy
73 Spring St. #206
New York, NY 10012 USA
tel +1 212 431-3922
fax +1 212 431-4427