World leaders must eradicate poverty: Mega

World leaders must eradicate poverty: Mega

Agence France-Presse, Johannesburg

World leaders owe it to billions of poor people to set aside differences and unite to eradicate poverty and preserve the global environment, Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri said on Monday.

She told the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, where heads of state and government are charting the future of the planet, that a "lack of political will" was the root cause of continued environmental deterioration 10 years after the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

"Should we fail to deliver a final conclusion on the key issues under consideration of the summit, it would only fortify the assumption that the whole design about sustainable development has so far been merely words and concepts," she warned.

She urged the summit to consider the impact of globalization on developing nations, saying that challenges that arose from opening up markets had made it difficult for them to reap the benefits.

To help them to work toward sustainable development, she said supportive frameworks in terms of "enhanced market access, sustained and adequate financial resources as well as improved capacities to master and apply technology" were vital.

"We owe it to billions of people yearning to lift themselves out of squalor and deprivation. They also have dreams about a better standard of living," she said.

"The torch has been handed over from Stockholm through Rio and now to Johannesburg. We should bring it forward with a strong commitment, that would correspond to the enormous challenges confronting us ahead."

South African President Thabo Mbeki opened the three-day meeting of world leaders at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg on Monday, urging them to produce a "concrete plan of action".

He painted a grim picture of a planet deeply divided between haves and have-nots -- a world of very rich and very poor, of healthy and sick, of natural resources that are being plundered and polluted.

"Our house is burning down and we're blind to it," said French President Jacques Chirac. "Nature, mutilated and over-exploited, can no longer regenerate, and we refuse to admit it... the Earth and mankind are in danger, and we are all responsible."

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany declared that climate change, inflicted by man's reckless burning of fossil fuels, had already begun, wreaking floods and drought in three continents.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair highlighted famine, war, poverty and disease in Africa, saying this claimed the life of one child every three seconds.

"If Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world, we have a duty to heal it," he said.

Facing this crisis, Western leaders vowed emotionally they would commit money and skills to help eradicate want and protect the environment.

U.S. President George W. Bush was absent from the meeting, which gathered around 100 heads of state and government, a snub which has infuriated environmentalists at the mammoth 10-day forum, which has drawn more than 40,000 delegates to official and fringe events.

Behind the scenes, exhausted negotiators were down to one last sticking point in a 71-page action plan, but environmentalists complained that compromises had blunted its teeth.

The last hurdle is access to electricity for the two billion people living in dire poverty and increasing power from solar panels, windmills and ocean waves to reduce dependence on polluting and finite fossil fuels such as coal, gas and petroleum.

The Plan of Implementation is due to be issued as the summit ends on Wednesday, along with a political declaration which in its draft form supports multilateralism, corruption-free government and a commitment to fight terrorism.

Three children, Analiz Vergara, 14, of Ecuador, and 11-year- olds Justin Friesen of Canada and Liao Mingyu of China, spoke firmly to the presidents.

"Most world leaders do not listen. We are disappointed because too many adults are more interested in money than in the environment," they said in a joint statement, reporting back from an international conference on children and the environment in Canada three months ago.