SECOND REPORT
The Environmental Audit Committee has
agreed to the following Report:
JOHANNESBURG AND BACK: THE WORLD SUMMIT
ON SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT—Committee delegation report on
proceedings
1. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
took place in Johannesburg, South Africa over the course of ten
days in August and September 2002. World leaders, parliamentarians,
United Nations agencies, multinational financial institutions,
businesses, local authorities and non-governmental organisations
and activists came together in the largest, most important gathering
on sustainable development since the landmark Earth Summit in
Rio de Janeiro ten years earlier. The Summit sought to identify
priorities and initiate implementation plans for future global,
national, and regional efforts to attain sustainable lifestyles
consistent with economic development, environmental protection
and social justice.
2. As the Committee charged with scrutinising and
auditing the Government's performance on issues relating to sustainable
development, consideration of the UK's contribution to the development
of the summit's agenda, its participation in the Summit and its
performance in implementing agreements made at the Summit are
important elements of our work. In March 2002, we reported on
the UK preparations for the Summit.[1]
We are currently engaged in exploring the effectiveness of the
Government's plans for implementing Summit agreements and will
be making a further Report to the House early in 2003.
3. We sent a small delegation, comprising: Joan Walley
MP (Labour, Stoke-on-Trent), Sue Doughty MP (Liberal Democrat,
Guildford) and Simon Thomas MP (Plaid Cymru, Ceredigion), to the
first part of the Summit to observe the UK's role in the proceedings
first hand and to participate in the associated parallel events.
4. We would like to record our gratitude to the delegation
for its diligent work at the Summit and for the useful observations
on the event and on the ways in which the full Committee's work
might benefit from the information they gathered and their experiences.
We are pleased that the delegation was also able to pursue other
strands of our work by taking the opportunity to advocate greater
international effort on environmental audit and by furthering
relations with other parliamentarians and parliamentary committees
with similar remits to our own.[2]
We are also grateful to GLOBE UK and GLOBE International for facilitating
Summit accreditation for our delegation and a supporting member
of staff.
5. The delegation's report is reproduced as the appendix
to this Report. We are publishing this account in advance of the
Committee's WSSD follow-up report, rather than appended to it,
so that a public account of our visit is made available as soon
as possible after the Summit. This early publication also enables
those contributing to the Committee's current inquiry, and conducting
their own WSSD follow-up work, to see the views and concerns of
our delegation.
1 Environmental Audit Committee, Third Report of Session
2001-02, UK Preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable
Development, HC 616 and Cm 5558, The Government's Response
to the Environmental Audit Committee Third Report (2001-02): UK
Preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. Back
2
Environmental Audit Committee, First Report of Session 2000-2001,
Environmental Audit: The First Parliament, HC 67. Back
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