U.S. Endorses a U.N. Environmental Commission

The United States on Monday endorsed creation of a high-level U.N. commission to pursue the global environmental and developmental goals set forth at last June’s Earth Summit in Brazil but skirted a call for massive infusions of more aid to developing countries.

Washington’s support for the “Sustainable Development Commission” came as the U.N. General Assembly opened debate on key recommendations made by the 178-nation conference.

Speaking for the Bush Administration, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William K. Reilly said the new organization “must be a focus of international support for sustainable, environmentally sound development for generations to come.”

Its mandate, he said, “will address a key question facing nations today: How do we expand our economies to meet the aspirations of our people, while still protecting human health and the natural resources on which lasting economic growth depends?”

The massively publicized U.N.-sponsored Earth Summit produced a treaty to combat the threat of global warming, a pact to protect biological diversity and an 800-page environment and development plan called Agenda 21. The Administration, concerned largely about the accords’ economic effect, succeeded in watering down the global warming agreement and refused to sign the biological diversity treaty.

Agenda 21, though non-binding, was debated for months before the summit and into the final hours of the meeting, with the United States successfully toning down several provisions.

Speaking for the developing bloc on Monday, Akram Zaki, Pakistan’s secretary general for foreign affairs, complained that economically advanced countries of the Northern Hemisphere have shown little sign of responding to the summit’s central objectives. “They remain preoccupied with their immediate economic, political and social problems,” he said.