Key players offer views on sustainable development in special issue of UN magazine

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today announced that it would publish a special edition of its magazine, Our Planet, for the upcoming World Summit for Sustainable Development containing articles on environmental issues by key international players, including United States Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In his article, Mr. Powell describes sustainable development as a "compelling moral and humanitarian issue" and says that delivering environmentally friendly development is vital for delivering a more stable world. He also calls sustainable development a security imperative.

"Poverty, environmental degradation and despair are destroyers of people, of societies, of nations. This unholy trinity can destabilize countries, even entire regions," Mr. Powell says.

"Despite the stories and images of trouble we read in our newspapers and view on our television screens, this is a time of great opportunities to expand peace, prosperity and freedom," Mr. Powell writes. "The spread of democracy and market economies, combined with breakthroughs in technology, permits us to dream of a day when, for the first time in history, most of humanity will be free of the ravages of tyranny and poverty."

For his part, UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer argues that failure at the Summit cannot be contemplated as the risks are too great. "Unless a new course is chartered for planet Earth we risk a new 'Iron Curtain,' dividing not East and West, but the haves and the have-nots - with all the ramifications of increased tensions, jealousies and hatreds between and within countries," he says.

Besides Mr. Powell, other authors of articles for the magazine include Thabo Mbeki, President of South Africa, which is hosting the Summit from 26 August to 4 September in Johannesburg, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs of the United Kingdom and Prime Minister Goran Persson of Sweden.

The World Summit for Sustainable Development opens in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 26 August.