NEWS: UN chief pursues 'low-carbon prosperity' through new panel on sustainable development

August 9, 2010
The Canadian Press

The presidents of Finland and South Africa will head up a new U.N. panel announced Monday to create a global plan for promoting sustainable development while also addressing climate change.

Finnish President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma have accepted positions as co-chairs of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's high-level panel on global sustainability.

Ban said the panel will deliver a report by the end of 2011 on how to spread "sustainable growth and low-carbon prosperity for all" in light of the urgent challenge posed by climate change.

"The panel will address the question of how to lift people out of poverty while respecting and preserving the climate and natural systems that sustain us. I have asked the panel to think big," Ban told a news conference.

"We need to promote low carbon growth and strengthen our resilience to the impacts of climate change," he said. "We need to address the interlinked global challenges of poverty, hunger, water, energy security and sanitation. In short, we need a blueprint for a more livable, prosperous, and sustainable future for all."

Other members include Barbados' prime minister, Turkey's deputy prime minister, the foreign ministers of Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates, the European Union's climate commissioner and India's environment minister.

Janos Pasztor, Ban's top climate adviser, will serve as the panel's top administrator. He said it's hoped the panel's report will play a role in upcoming major U.N. summits on climate at the end of next year and on sustainable development in 2012. Zuma's South Africa, for example, also will play host to the climate summit in December 2011.

"The international community is having a hard time to deal with climate change, as we've seen in Copenhagen. We've had the top world leaders there and they were not able to bring this to a fully successful conclusion," Pasztor said.

"And one of the reasons is that we have not managed to connect the dots. We're dealing with climate change here, we're dealing with development over there, we're dealing with poverty reduction somewhere else," he said. "And we just can't deal with it. And one of the things this panel is going to do is bring these things together a little bit."

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