World Summit outcome actions.

World leaders, meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 14 to 16 September, 2005, agreed to take action on a range of global challenges.

Development

* Strong and unambiguous commitment by all Governments, of donor and developing nations alike, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015.

* Additional $50 billion a year for fighting poverty by 2010.

* Commitment by all developing countries to adopt national plans for achieving the MDGs by 2006.

* Agreement to provide immediate support for quick impact initiatives to support anti-malaria efforts, education and health care.

* Commitment to innovative sources of financing for development, including efforts by groups of countries to implement an international finance facility and other initiatives to finance development projects, in particular in the health sector.

* Agreement to consider additional measures to ensure long-term debt sustainability through increased grant-based financing, cancellation of 100 per cent of the official multilateral and bilateral debt of heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs). Where appropriate, to consider significant debt relief or restructuring for low- and middle-income developing countries with unsustainable debt burdens that are not part of the HIPC initiative.

* Commitment to trade liberalization and expeditious work towards implementing the development dimensions of the Doha work programme.

Terrorism

* Clear and unqualified condemnation by all Governments, for the first time, of terrorism "in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes".

* Strong political push for a comprehensive convention against terrorism within a year. Support for early entry into force of the Nuclear Terrorism Convention. All States are encouraged to join and implement it, as well as the 12 other anti-terrorism conventions.

* Agreement to fashion a strategy to fight terrorism in a way that makes the international community stronger and the terrorists weaker.

Peacebuilding, Peacekeeping and Peacemaking 

* Decision to create a Peacebuilding Commission to help countries transition from war to peace, backed by a support office and a standing fund.

* New standing police capacity for UN peacekeeping operations.

* Agreement to strengthen the Secretary-General's capacity for mediation and good offices.

Responsibility to Protect

* Clear and unambiguous acceptance by all Governments of the collective international responsibility to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. Willingness to take timely and decisive collective action for this purpose through the Security Council, when peaceful means prove inadequate and national authorities are manifestly failing to do it.

Human Rights, Democracy and Rule of Law

* Decisive steps to strengthen the UN human rights machinery, backing the action plan and doubling the budget of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

* Agreement to establish a UN Human Rights Council during the coming year.

* Reaffirmation of democracy as a universal value, and welcome for a new Democracy Fund, which has already received pledges of $32 million from 13 countries.

* Commitment to eliminate pervasive gender discrimination, such as inequalities in education and ownership of property, and violence against women and girls and end impunity for such violence.

* Ratification action taken during the Summit triggered the entry into force of the Convention against Corruption.

Management Reform

* Broad strengthening of the UN oversight capacity, including the Office of Internal Oversight Services, expanding oversight services to other agencies, calling for developing an independent oversight advisory committee and further developing a new ethics office.

* Update the United Nations by reviewing all mandates older than five years, so that obsolete ones can be discarded to make room for new priorities.

* Commitment to overhauling rules and policies on budget, finance and human resources so the United Nations can better respond to current needs, and a one-time staff buyout to ensure that the Organization has the appropriate staff for today's challenges.

Environment

* Recognition of the serious challenge posed by climate change and a commitment to take action through the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Assistance will be provided to those most vulnerable, such as small island developing States.

* Agreement to create a worldwide early warning system for all natural hazards.

International Health

* A scaling up of responses to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, through prevention, care, treatment and support, and mobilization of additional resources from national, bilateral, multilateral and private sources.

* Commitment to fight infectious diseases, including a commitment to ensure full implementation of the new International Health Regulations, and support for the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network of the World Health Organization.

Humanitarian Assistance

* Improved Central Emergency Revolving Fund to ensure that relief arrives reliably and immediately when disasters happen.

* Recognition of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement as an important international framework for the protection of internally displaced persons.

Updating the UN Charter

* A decision to revise and update the Charter by:

** Winding up the Trusteeship Council, marking completion of UN's historic decolonisation role;

** Deleting anachronistic references to "enemy states" in the Charter.

The full text of the document is available on the World Summit website: www.un.org/summit2005

RELATED ARTICLE: Hurricanes: A Sign of Things to Come?

In his address to the 2005 World Summit on 14 September, United States President George Bush made reference to the thousands of people trying to piece back together their lives after the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, which he described as "one of the worst natural disasters in American history". Less than two weeks later, the same stretch of the Gulf Coast was hit by Hurricane Rita, although the effect was not as devastating.

In a landmark paper published a month before Katrina hit, hurricane specialist Kerry Emmanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology stated that an increase in sea temperature was responsible for tropical storms that were 50 per cent stronger and more powerful than those a few decades before. Warmer sea temperatures is one of the theorized consequences of global warming--a phenomenon that occurs when emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases effectively form an "envelope" around the earth, creating a greenhouse effect.

UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland believes that these hurricanes are a symptom of global warming. "It is a wake-up call for everybody. You have two of the worst hurricanes ever hitting the United States within weeks of each other. There is no doubt the climate is changing."

The World Summit Outcome document acknowledges the challenge posed by climate change and renews Member States commitment to take action against this threat. Adnan Amin, Director of the UN Environment Programme in New York, told the UN Chronicle: "It's a very significant political statement, that all Member States signed on to the document and reaffirmed their commitment to the UN Convention on Climate Change and to stabilize greenhouse gas and recognize that mankind is contributing to climate change." He also said that global warming "is a very serious threat to the future of humanity" and in particular poses a serious threat for small island States. "There's a potential that these States will be wiped off the face of the earth."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that melting ice caps and glaciers could result in a rise in sea level between 15 and 95 centimetres by the end of the century. For low-lying island States such as Antigua and Barbuda, global warming threatens their existence. John Ashe, that country's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, told the UN Chronicle that he was "deeply concerned" with the predicted rise in sea levels, saying that "in the Pacific, most of the island States tend to be atolls and some are at or below sea level.... Clearly, a number of these countries will be inundated; then we'll have a situation where the islands that people currently inhabit would become uninhabitable". Environmental researcher Norman Myers predicted that by the year 2050 up to 150 million people could become "environmental refugees" due to rising sea levels.

For example, the highest point of the island nation of Tuvalu is approximately 4 metres above sea level. The threat of submergence has forced the Government to sign an agreement with New Zealand to relocate many of its citizens in the coming decades. Tuvalu came to international attention in 2002 when they threatened to take Australia and the United States to the International Court of Justice--the World Court--for failing to make a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. Tuvaluans felt that this failure threatened their very existence, a breach under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which declares that a population may not be deprived of its means of subsistence. According to a Tuvalu News report. Australia is the world's biggest per capita emitter and the United States is the single largest polluter of greenhouse gases.--Jane Lloyd