Richard Black erroneously states, "In 2002, all governments of the world pledged to restore (fish) stocks to MSY."...The US made no such pledge, not eager in 2002 to waste hard-earned taxpayer money sending a delegation to another UN bacchanal of "tens of thousands."
5/28/12, "EU fishing reforms face weakening," BBC, Richard Black
"The main battle line pits more conservation-minded northern countries such as Germany and Sweden against southern states keener to protect fishermen's' short-term interests, including Spain, Portugal and France.
"The question is very basic - do EU fisheries ministers have the courage to end overfishing or not?" said Markus Knigge, advisor to the Pew Environment Group.
The original CFP reform proposal put forward by European Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki last year contained three key elements:
- restore all fish stocks to maximum sustainable yield (MSY) by 2015
- reduce and regulate the size of the EU's fishing fleet through an internal trading mechanism
- eliminate the wasteful practice of discarding fish that are outside a boat's quota.
Governments have been negotiating on Ms Damanaki's proposal ever since, with the aim of finalising a package by next year.
Trading Scheme
The trading mechanism, known as Individual Transferable Quotas, saw considerable opposition and will almost certainly not happen.
Instead, each member state will take responsibility for managing the size of its own fleet. The final agreement is likely to include a mechanism for sanctioning countries that do not make adequate arrangements.
This is raising alarm bells with some environment groups, who point out that many EU nations have proven unwilling to manage their fleets in the past.
Agreeing decentralised, regional management was a priority for the UK, which has successfully reduced capacity in its own fleets....
In 2002, all governments of the world pledged to restore stocks to MSY "with the aim of achieving these goals for depleted stocks on an urgent basis and where possible not later than 2015".
European ministers are arguing that the words "where possible" mean they are entitled to water down the 2015 commitment.
However, environment groups argue that the words were included only to allow poorer developing nations time to gather the data needed to set an MSY target....
Next month the Danish government hosts a key session of environment ministers at which it plans to secure a show-of-hands agreement on major elements of the package....
"We need firm dates for MSY, and we need a firm and effective discard ban as part of the basic rules," said Ms Damanaki (EU Fisheries Commissioner)."
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8/15/2002, "Conservatives praise Bush for opting out of U.N. Earth summit," AP
US voters did not elect parasites at the UN or the Pew Environment Group.
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The non-existent 2002 "all world governments" agreement to which Mr. Black likely refers was a wasteful extravaganza attended by "tens of thousands" at taxpayer expense:
From eoearth.org: "World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), Johannesburg, South Africa," from 26 August to 4 September 2002.
"Tens of thousands participated in this World Summit including a World Summit on Sustainable Development bureau appointed by the UN, heads of State and Government, national delegates and leaders from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), businesses, and other major groups. The summit focused the world's attention toward meeting difficult challenges, including improving people's lives and conserving natural resources, with ever-increasing demands for food, water, shelter, sanitation, energy, health services and economic security.
The summit was called in large part to assess world developments in sustainability since the 1992 Earth Summit, and to evaluate the effectiveness of Agenda 21 and other agreements reached at the 1992 meeting. Attendees assessed the effectiveness of Agenda 21, to what extent countries had kept up their commitment to the agenda, how challenges to sustainability had changed, and how to properly address new challenges....
Type 2 agreements were a reflection of the massive change in landscape that had occurred over the previous 10 years, with NGOs and business taking a far more important role in international environmental affairs....In terms of sustainable development, the World Summit on Sustainable Development had the distinction of actually having those two magic words in its very title....Even though some argued that the term had lost its ‘edge’ and was mostly being used rhetorically, the fact remained that it had also become a political necessity. For those who believed in the concept, this was a chance to put meaning into it."...
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Ed. note: Mr. Black, how did "poorer" nations get that way? Why do millionaires sometimes go broke?
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5/9/2002, "Costing the Earth," BBC Radio 4
"In Washington DC, the courts are being used to clean up the capital city's smog. In California, the state government has introduced some of the world's strictest regulations on poisonous emissions from cars. And one by one the great corporations, the lifeblood of the American economy, are being converted to the environmental cause as they become convinced that there's dollars to be made from going Green."
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