Oxford Earth Summit

DAY 1: Monday, April 15th 2002: "Setting the Scene"

Prof. Norman Myers: Oxford University.

Listen to Norman's opening address entitled "Sharing our Earth" as an MP3.

* "We face environmental problems of unprecedented scale and scope."

* "It will not cost the Earth to save the Earth."

* "What is missing for the most part is the political will."

Mr. Alfredo Sfeir-Younis: World Bank

Listen to Alfredo's talk entitled "The political, economy and human dimensionsof sustainable development" as an MP3.

* "The 12 richest individuals have the same wealth as India + Bangladesh."

* "We need a mainstreaming of sustainable development issues and shifts in empowerment + governance."

Mr. Matt Prescott: Summit Organiser.

Listen to Matt's talk entitled "Is it possible for you to make a difference?"as an MP3.

* "Little things do matter."

* "We need to develop a long-term agenda based on knowledge, accountability, fairness and action."

Mr. Nigel Cross: International Institute for Environment + Development.

The IIED's World Summit on Sustainable Development briefing.

* "25% of the world pop consumes 75% of the world's resources."

* "At Rio a global aid budget target of $125 billion was set. However in 1992 the budget was $69 billion and by 2002 had been reduced to $53 billion."

* "Most US aid goes to Israel + Egypt. The remainder, given to the rest of the world, amounts to the same sum given by Denmark."

Ms. Romilly Greenhill: Jubilee Research

Listen to Romilly's talk entitled "Third World Debt alleviation and international insolvency laws" as a MP3.

* "Debt repayments severely undermine development."

* "The debt problem has NOT been solved."

* "Of the 42 most heavily indebted countries only 4 countries have had significant debt cancellation after 3 years."

* "Solutions will not work (for debtor nations) if designed by creditor nations in their own interest."

Mr. Ravi Narayanan: Water Aid

Listen to Ravi's talk entitled "The importance of clean water and good hygiene in development" as an MP3.

* "There are 1.2 billion people without access to clean water and 2.4 billion without adequate sanitation."

* "Every day 6000 children die of diarrhoreal diseases."

* "80% of the disease load in developing countries is caused by water- borne diseases."

* "It would cost £11 billion per year (the same amount as is spent of petfood in the US and EU each year), for 10 years, to halve the number of people with poor sanitation."

Mr. Tony Vaux: Humanitarian Aid Expert

Listen to Tony's talk "Selfish altruism and non-economic development" as a MP3.

Link to a book review of the Selfish Altruist.

* "Are our humanitarian involvements really altruistic or selfish?"

* "We don't expect locals to have the necessary resources but to be reliant on international aid."

* "The poor can and do take the initiative and understand issues in a way we don't."

* "We need democratisation of the aid apparatus."

More of the talks + quotes will be added to Earth-Info.Net over the course of this week but can already be found at the Oxford Earth Summit homepage.

P.S. Earth-Info.Net has noticed that James Wolfensohn, the head of The World Bank, has today said that the Millennium Development Goals will not be met without additional aid and warned that absolute poverty will increase in Africa... he is also worried that while attention is focused on Iraq, the "other war" against global poverty will be forgotten.

He's spot on to highlight these problems and has consequently gone up in Earth-Info.Net's estimation. A war against poverty has the added advantage that it would't kill anyone but could instead save millions of lives! Sounds like a war worth fighting, and a relatively cheap one at that!