3 July 2008: The High-level Segment of the UN Economic
and Social Council’s (ECOSOC) Substantive Session has developed a Ministerial
Declaration entitled “Implementing the internationally agreed goals and
commitments in regard to sustainable development.” The four-day High-level
Segment (30 June-3 July) convened at UN Headquarters in New York, US, and
consisted of four elements: a high-level policy dialogue on the state of the
world economy and its implications for the achievement of the UN Development
Agenda (30 June); the first Development Cooperation Forum (30 June-1 July); the
second Annual Ministerial Review (2-3 July); and a thematic debate on
integrated approaches to rural development (3 July).

The Ministerial Declaration
notes that multiple challenges, including financial instability and
uncertainty, slowing global economic growth, rising food and fuel prices, as
well as the impacts of environmental degradation and the impacts of climate
change, require early concerted action, and highlights concern about “the
negative impacts of these risks on sustained economic growth and sustainable
development particularly in developing countries.” 
With regard to climate change,
the Ministerial Declaration acknowledges “that the global nature of climate
change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their
participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in
accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities and respective
capabilities and their social and economic conditions.” The ministers highlight their reaffirmed
commitment to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a
level that prevents dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
They identify their concern that all countries, in particular developing
countries, face “increased risks from the negative effects of climate change,”
and “stress the need to urgently address adaptation needs relating to such
effects.”
Ministers further state that
responses to climate change “should be coordinated with social and economic
development in an integrated manner, with a view to avoiding adverse impact on
the latter, taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of
developing countries for the achievement of sustained economic growth and the
eradication of poverty.” The declaration also welcomes the decisions of the
2007 Bali Climate Change Conference, “including the Bali Action Plan,” and
takes note of the work underway in the Open-ended Ad hoc Working Group of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. [Draft
ministerial declaration of the 2008 ECOSOC high-level segment] [ECOSOC News
Release]