Word: summiteering
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...part, the World Bank, positioned to be the primary distributor of funds to the developing nations, will have to do a better job of integrating environment and development in its investments. Some participants observed that the summit might have achieved more if it had lowered its sights and addressed the environmentally damaging consequences of present international assistance and domestic subsidies. World Bank initiatives like the Tropical Forestry Action Plan were billed as efforts to halt the destruction of rain forests, but in many cases the plan became an instrument of deforestation by fostering projects to open virgin forests to loggers...
...European nations and Japan have been hailed as summit heroes for their willingness to support its agreements, but they will have to bolster their declared commitment to reducing greenhouse gases with realistic programs. For instance, part of Japan's strategy to stabilize CO2 emissions calls for building 20 nuclear power plants by the year 2000 and 40 by 2010. It stretches credibility to assume that Japanese citizens, already worried about nuclear risks, will agree to this massive initiative in their crowded communities. Similarly, countries like Italy have found an easy way to meet targets of greenhouse emissions by buying power...
...history of environmental programs, many delegates felt that the U.S. has squandered an exquisite opportunity to invest meaning in the new world order. Said retiring Senator Timothy Wirth of Colorado: "I'm afraid that history is not going to treat the U.S. kindly when it looks back at the summit...
Given the lack of leadership by governments, Maurice Strong, the summit's secretary-general, hopes ordinary people will force politicians to live up to the obligations articulated at Rio. He plans to make his own contribution to this grass-roots movement by heading an Earth Council, which he sees as a watchdog organization like the Helsinki Watch groups that sprang up after the 1975 Helsinki accords on human rights. The Earth Council's goal would be to ensure that institutions such as the Sustainable Development Commission actually do their...
...Most summit participants agree that the best hope for the future comes from changes in values prompted by grass-roots concerns. Said Spencer Beebe, president of the American environmental group Ecotrust: "Saving the planet has never been an issue of money but rather a matter of the resourcefulness and motivation of individuals...