Select Committee on Environmental Audit Second Report


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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Prepared 18 December 2002