Media Room Information Kit

World Summit Offers a Change to Move from Vision to Action

Between August 26 and September 4, tens of thousands of people will be in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). The international community is poised to focus the Summit on defining realistic plans and building effective partnerships to generate results. Canada is determined to help achieve those goals and more.

One basic understanding for everyone at the Summit will be the need to address the Earth's economic, social and environmental priorities in integrated ways. Another will be that we cannot simply rely on broad visions to spur action.

The need for the summit is obvious. This spring marked Canada's 19th consecutive season of above normal temperatures. It is estimated that a fifth of the world's burden of disease is linked to environmental degradation. A billion people live on less than US$1 per day, and nearly 1.5 billion have no access to clean water or reliable sources of energy.

We have a base for action in the decisions that were made at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro a decade ago. The international community has moved a long way on responses to issues such as climate change and protecting the biological diversity of our world. In Canada, we've seen progress such as new laws protecting biodiversity and for environmental protection.

Equally important, more partners are taking on the challenge of sustainable development, whether those are business leaders whose companies are finding innovative solutions that reduce environmental impacts and costs, or municipalities and local groups that are taking action to create more liveable communities for today and for future generations.

However, Canada's National Report to WSSD and the reports that other countries are making also point out the many challenges and setbacks along the way. As a result, the agenda for Johannesburg has been built from the lessons of Rio.

The most important of the lessons is the need to focus on a targeted key issues, where the impacts can be greatest, rather than mapping out broad visions for a wide range of topics. The Summit is moving to a particular focus on issues such as improving access to clean water and reliable energy sources; improving the health of people, especially through improving the health of the environment in which those people live; and addressing agricultural priorities and biological diversity.

Canada agrees these are valuable issues for the Summit's attention. We believe the challenges will be to ensure that the world integrates environmental, economic and social development issues in all these areas, and to find ways to catalyze action, especially by building partnerships to achieve our common goals.

For our part, Canada will contribute to a successful Summit by focusing our attention on four key items.

Sustainable Development in Africa — The social, economic and environmental challenges facing Africa are starker than those facing any other continent. However, African leaders have agreed on bold steps forward. As Chair of the 2002 G8, Canada took a lead role in developing the G8 Africa Action Plan to demonstrate the commitment to work with Africa. At the Summit, Canada will work to build on that progress in practical and valuable ways.

Partnerships — The best results for sustainable development are the ones that come from the united commitment of all partners in society. In particular, Canada believes it is fundamental to engage the drive, resources and innovative thinking of business for international action, just as we do at home. The result is often the unleashing of new and better technologies and processes and investments that help to reduce poverty and address environmental needs. We are seeing many good examples of working partnerships at the community level in Canada. As a result, sustainable community development is being embraced at all levels - federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments, Aboriginal Peoples, the public and private sector, and civil society.

Health and Environment — It is clear that a healthy environment is important for a healthy population. Canada is working with other G8 countries and our partners throughout the Americas and the Caribbean on action plans to tackle the environmental factors that affect health. It is time to expand that kind of integrated approach to health and the environment around the world.

Governance — One of the roadblocks to more effective action over the past decade has been weakness in the legal and institutional framework for international cooperation on sustainable development. Responsibilities and resources are spread widely and focused inadequately. In particular, Canada has led a process that identified ways to strengthen the UN Environment Program as part of broader improvements in governance. We intend to pursue that agenda in Johannesburg to bring about more responsiveness and effectiveness.

Canada will pay close attention to other issues where we can make a contribution and that are important to Canadians, especially the sustainable management of natural resources, particularly forests and mining.

There is no question that our Earth faces some daunting challenges and that the past decade has had both progress and setbacks. In Johannesburg, the international community has the opportunity to create a clear, results-oriented agenda that engages the full commitment of all possible partners. Canada will do its part to make the World Summit on Sustainable Development a success.