November 08, 2007	Thursday	Shawwal 26, 1428

PESHAWAR, Nov 7: President of Pak-Afghan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Senator Ilyas Ahmad Bilour has said that energy is crucial for sustainable development, poverty eradication and achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

He was addressing the second committee of the 62th General Assembly session of United Nations (UN) in New York on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.

According to a text of the speech obtained by the APP, Mr Bilour said that developing countries were faced with a formidable task of meeting the increasing demand for energy to achieve goals of sustainable development.

Substantial increase in the global share of renewable energy sources was an urgent imperative with the objective of increasing its contribution to total energy supply, he observed.

Mr Bilour said that at national and international levels, the economic social and environmental goals should be promoted in complementary and consistent ways and, therefore, progress in the environmental pillar of sustainable development should be matched by simultaneous progress in economic and social sectors as well.

“In our endeavours to promote solutions to the challenge of sustainable development, we must ensure that the priority problems of poverty, hunger and under-development remain the centre of our attention,” he said.

He said that human-induced activities, particularly in recent decades, were putting an unprecedented strain on ecosystem and the ability of the planet’s ecosystem to sustain future generations must be ensured.

“The stakes are high for the entire world and it is important to involve all stakeholders in an effort towards sustainable development,” he observed.

Mr Bilour said that the vulnerability and challenges faced by small island developing states were increasing and without the support of the international community their sustainable development efforts would be in greater jeopardy.

He told the gathering that G-77 and China noted with concern that natural disasters were increasing in terms of both frequency and severity. Due to rapid population growth, especially in urban areas, environmental degradation, growing poverty and the social and economic impacts of disasters had become greater. The adverse consequences on the affected population and the environment as well as social and economic development of affected countries are a long-lasting phenomena.

He said that it was encouraging to note that many developing countries were making efforts to build resilience of their communities and to reduce disasters. These efforts needed to be supported by the international community.

About climate change, Mr Bilour said the challenge of environmental degradation and climate change was huge and clearly beyond the capacity of the developing countries to address it on their own.He said that human factors such as overgrazing, deforestation and over exploitation of land due to demographic pressure, compounded with climatic change, were turning once fertile soils into unproductive and barren patches of lands.

The affected developing countries needed support in capacity building to gain more access to financial resources and technology transfer, he said.

Mr Bilour expressed the hope that the challenges of global sustainable development would be addressed in an integrated and coordinated manner and urged the UN to focus on eradication of poverty as an indispensable prerequisite for sustained economic growth and sustainable development in developing countries.

—APP