Environment officials from 120 nations yesterday called for economic growth without destroying nature, but disappointment over US President Bush's climate plan overshadowed the end of their UN-sponsored meeting.
"We all recognize that it is time for action on the environment .... The security of the Earth is at stake," Mr David Anderson, Canada's environment minister, told 600 delegates at a UN conference on the environment in Colombia.
The delegates approved a global plan to crack down on the production, smuggling and dumping of illegal hazardous chemicals - many of which have been found to be contaminating the world's most remote and pristine areas.
But the main objective of the conference, which ended last night, was to prepare for a world environment summit in Johannesburg in August and September.
US President Bush's alternative plan to the Kyoto climate change treaty, outlined on Thursday, diverted the attention of delegates who said it does not address global warming.
"We need a global treaty to address the issue of climate change but for the time being we have to accept a plural system: countries that have ratified Kyoto and countries that have not, like the United States, Japan's Hironori Hamanaka, vice minister for global environment affairs," told reporters. Japan has said it plans to ratify the Kyoto treaty this year.
Mr Anderson called Washington's plan the beginning of the steps in the voyage, but said, "Much more will have to be done."
On Thursday, Mr Bush presented a voluntary plan to slow the growth of heat-trapping gases blamed for global warming, in contrast to the mandatory limits sought in the 1997 Kyoto treaty.
The United States, the world's biggest polluter, pulled out of the treaty in March, saying it would harm its economy.
A United Nations report released at the conference's end cited affluence as the cause of most of the environmental issues facing us and said over-consumption is destroying our resource base.