Yogyakarta hosts int'l meeting on sustainable development
Yogyakarta hosts int'l meeting on sustainable development
Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta
Experts, government officials and activists representing the
Asia Pacific region gathered on Wednesday in Yogykarta for a
three day meeting to discuss cleaner production methods and a
sustainable consumption pattern in the region.
The meeting was organized by the Indonesian government and the
United Nations, through the UN Environment Program (UNREP), the
UN Development Program (UNDP) and the UN Department of Economic
and Social Affairs (UN-DESA).
Delegates from Africa, Latin America and Europe where also
present in the meeting which Indonesia's State Minister for the
Environment Nabiel Makarim opened on Wednesday.
"The region's economic development agenda needs to be coupled
with clean production processes and sustainable consumption
patterns," said UNEP deputy executive director Shafqat Kakakhel
in a press conference.
He said that pushing for sustainable development was important
in the Asia Pacific region because it was the world's most
populous region.
The region accounts for some 70 percent of the world's poor
population, according to a UNEP paper.
Its middle to high class consumers earning more than US$7,000
a year amounted to just 26 percent of the region's population.
But even now the region suffers from environmental damage as a
result of an unsustainable consumption pattern led by this small
percentage of the population.
UNEP warned that raising prosperity in Asia Pacific could
further harm the environment if consumption patterns remained
unsustainable.
Kakakhel said the meeting in Yogyakarta aimed to prepare an
agenda to implement sustainable consumption and production
patterns over a 10-year period in the region.
He said the planned agenda was a follow up to last year's
World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South
Africa.
Bali had hosted the preparatory meeting for the summit, which
environmentalists criticized for lacking support from several
developed countries.
Sustainable development aims to curb the over exploitation of
natural resources that is driving today's economic development
pattern worldwide. The summit's action plan set the direction of
global economic development for the next 10 years.
Environmental activists however dismissed the blueprint as
loaded with vague targets and weak commitments.
The Yogyakarta meeting meanwhile focuses on production and
consumption.
Kakakhel said the resulting agenda from the Yogyakarta meeting
would call for stronger government leadership on these fronts.
Participants will meet again to compare their findings with
other regions in a meeting next month in Marrakech, Morocco.