Press Conference by Prime Minister of Netherlands

Willem Kok, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, briefs press on General Assembly's special session to review the implementation of Agenda 21.

• Categories: Media / Press Conferences
• Video Length: 00:38:31
• Production Date: 23 June 1997
• Asset Language: English
• Personal Subject: JOHANNES P. PRONK; SAMIR SANBAR; WIM KOK
• Corporate Name: EUROPEAN UNION - EU
• Subject Topical: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION; WATER
• Geographic Subject: NETHERLANDS
• MAMS Id: 2351885
• Parent Id: 846519

Description

The General Assembly's special session to review the implementation of Agenda 21 should not only assess what had been done to protect the environment, but should also set out policy lines for sustainable development for the future, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Willem Kok, told correspondents at a Headquarters press conference yesterday afternoon, 23 June.

The Minister for Development Cooperation, Johannes Peiter Pronk, and his counterpart in charge of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment, Margaretha de Boer, also spoke at the conference launched by the Assistant Secretary-General for Public Information, Samir Sanbar.

The Prime Minister said the Summit should help promote world-wide sustainable development with a balance between environmental protection and economic growth. The search for sustainable development must put people at the centre of the process since development could be sustained only if the world eradicated poverty, promoted employment, fostered social integration, promoted gender equality and respected human rights.

During his speech to the special session, he said, he had listed some of the initiatives proposed by the European Union on the protection of forests, the provision of clean water and the sustainable use of alternative forms of energy.

Continuing, he said that Europeans felt that since climate change was a global problem, the industrialized world should lead in reducing the emission of greenhouse gases and conclude a legally-binding treaty at the third Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in Kyoto in December. The European Union had accepted a phased reduction of the emission of those gases by 15 per cent below the 1990 level by the year 2010. Due to differences of opinion about the targets at the just-concluded Denver Summit of the Eight, the European Union had invited other participants to join the pursuit of that goal.

Regarding water, he said it was important to highlight the impending water crisis and to promote a more integrated approach that would have water and land management examined together. The Union also invited others to join it in providing financial support for the sustainable management of forests and the implementation of Agenda 21.

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