Word: rios
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This week the largest international meeting in history, let alone just on the subject of the environment, will convene in Rio de Janeiro, replete with 100 heads of state and a cast of tens of thousands. Some would assert that just having the meeting represents progress, but there is every reason to wish for and expect more. Fortunately, it is no longer possible that it will be naught but an environmental Woodstock or an enormous black hole for diplomatic talent and energy. With a last-minute flurry of negotiation possible, it is as yet unclear how much progress will...
...hard to assess how much can actually be achieved at Rio. But it is clear that there will be plenty to do afterward, and it is not too soon to think about how new strategies might be most effectively pursued. Certainly we cannot depend on periodic mechanisms like the Earth Summit, which manage to be both ponderous and convulsive at the same time. There is a need for an interim continuing structure like the Security Council within the United Nations. An alternative might be a voluntary mechanism like the Group of Seven meetings, but one that includes some...
...delegates to the Earth Summit won't have to travel far to see an urban environmental disaster in progress. Rio de Janeiro has it all: air and water pollution on a grand scale, crumbling infrastructure, raging crime and sprawling slums. Rio even has its own troubled tropical forest, the remnants of which sweep up the hillsides behind the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. Those beaches have lost much of their appeal to tourists, because the ocean waters are polluted and because beachgoers are vulnerable to the crime wave that has overtaken Rio in recent years. The pollution problem is grave...
...Rio's selection as the host city will redound to its benefit. Government officials, eager to put the best face on the city for the 30,000 expected visitors, have repaved the roads, expanded the airport, built a new downtown expressway and preened the beachfront parks and promenades. Street children have been rounded up and placed in shelters, homeless migrants have been sent packing, and law enforcement has been beefed up. Officials have also started some ambitious environmental projects, chief among them the cleanup of Guanabara Bay. The project will cost $667 million, $450 million of it to be lent...
Today, the Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland is at Harvard straight from the Rio Earth Summit to deliver the University's Commencement address. Brundtland, chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development, is a world leader on environmental issues...