LEBANON: June 9, 2003
BEIRUT - Seeking to ease a water crisis threatening a third of humanity, the United Nations marked world environment day with calls for governments to double aid to poor countries and for ordinary people to fix leaky taps.
Under the slogan "Water - two billion people are dying for it!", projects ranged from draining mosquito-infested pools in Kenya to a tasting in Brussels of tap water from around Europe. "Water-related diseases kill a child every eight seconds," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message on the anniversary of a landmark environmental conference in Stockholm on June 5, 1972.
"One person in six lives without regular access to safe drinking water. Over twice that number - 2.4 billion - lack access to adequate sanitation," he said.
Bangladesh launched a tree-planting drive meant to turn the nation into a "garden of green" by 2015. In Egypt, politicians and celebrities helped sweep the streets and planted 600 trees in one of Cairo's oldest and poorest neighbourhoods.
The United Nations says the world must do far more to meet goals of halving the proportion of people who lack safe drinking water and sanitation by the year 2015, part of an overall drive to halve global poverty.
"If we are to meet the commitments...the world will have to spend up to $180 billion annually, more than double what is being spent today," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme.
He told a news conference in Beirut, hosting the annual event, that big investments were needed in everything from sewage treatment to irrigation.
PEOPLE CAN DO THEIR BIT
And the United Nations says ordinary citizens can do their bit with simple measures like plugging leaks at home, collecting rainwater, turning off the tap when brushing their teeth or taking a short shower instead of a bath.
In China, the world's most populous country, the government said it planned to invest more than $30 billion over the next few years to fight water pollution and help relieve shortages.
But environmentalists reiterated concern over China's Three Gorges Dam - the world's largest hydroelectric project - which China began filling on Sunday.
The WWF environmental group said 1,700 dams planned around the world, like the Three Gorges, would suck rivers dry.
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri said the budget of the U.S.-led war on Iraq exceeded the cash needed to alleviate the plight of people suffering from water shortages.
In Moscow, parliamentarians wrangled about delays in the country's planned ratification of the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol meant to rein in emissions of gases blamed for global warming. Under a complex weighting system, Kyoto's fate hangs on Russia.
Some accused President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet but others said issues like a crumbling nuclear industry were more urgent than the long-term threat of climate change that may cause more severe storms, floods and droughts.
"When your house is on fire, you don't worry about washing the dishes," Robert Nigmatulin, chairman of the ecological council of Russia's lower house of parliament, told Reuters.
In Rome, Jacques Diouf, director-general of the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organisation, said better water management would lead to "fewer disasters like the current food crisis in southern Africa and the Horn of Africa".
The United Nations says water is the world's most precious resource. European and U.S. space probes are heading to Mars this year to seek evidence of water - a sign life might have existed on the red planet.
Story by Cynthia Johnston
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