CSD-16 Report (Frank Corcoran, An Taisce), May 2008
This year was the review year on the themes of agriculture, rural development, land, drought, desertification and Africa. The target of the NGOs was to ensure that sufficient information was disseminated in order to make informed decisions on policy on those areas next year. One of the gaps in information was in relation to sustainability criteria for biofuels. Minister Gormley, in his interactive discussions, supported Norway’s call for the United Nations to commission its own sustainability criteria. (The significance of this is that the G8 is already developing sustainability criteria for biofuels in Rome. It will be preferable that the UN has its own criteria based upon principles of sustainable development long established by them).
The United Nations university conducts intensive sessions in its learning centre on strategic environmental assessment every year. This year it was on land-use management, and the UN is recommending to governments that they should use the SEA tool to formulate policy, programmes and plans. Again in his interactive discussions, Minister Gormley supported Mauritius in calling for strategic environmental assessment of biofuels.
Prior to the interactive discussions, the vice-chair of the session, Mr. Odjanic,
criticised delegates for over-reliance of reading out prepared statements. Minister Gormley broke that mode by referring to the NGO statement as being very sensible, practical and passionate. He went on to say that he thought that some of the major corporations are using the food crisis as a justification for the introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). He continued that, if anything, it could exacerbate the food crisis. The chair of the session was so delighted with his contribution and the fact that he was reacting to statements already made that he suggested that he should be interviewed in the major groups’ publication ‘Outreach,’ which subsequently happened.
The European Union did not make itself available for scrutiny inside events as it had done in previous years. This may be related to the cancellation of Environment Comissioner Dimas’ attendance. In fact, the EU had a low profile as some of the countries were unhappy with the fact that the chair of CSD-16 was from Zimbabwe. For the first time, next year the chair of CSD-17 will be a woman, Minister Gerda Verburg of the Netherlands. She hopes to put a lot of effort into the preparatory period in order to strengthen the quality of the results.
In the final chairman’s summary, reference was made to improving cadastral systems.
(This could be significant for Ireland, as one of the barriers to the introduction of a site value tax, in order to pay for public transport, for example, is the incomplete state of our Land Registry and the fact that it doesn’t register valuations).
One of the side events looked at best practice in developing national sustainable development strategies. The UN has recently published new guidelines on indicators of national sustainable development strategies.
