Rio eco-summit 'top priority' for UN

Yahoo News 16 Jun 11;

BRASILIA (AFP) – A summit on sustainable development to be hosted next year in Rio, 20 years after the UN Earth Summit in the same city, will be a "top priority" for the UN, the world body's chief said Thursday.

"This will be the most important top priority for the UN," Ban Ki-moon said, as he prepared to meet Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff as part of a Latin America tour meant to bolster his re-election bid as UN secretary general.

While there has been "good progress" on climate change, nations "have not been able to agree on a comprehensive agreement," he said, alluding to a 2009 UN climate change summit in Copenhagen that ended in failure.

"We're now facing food insecurity, energy insecurity, water scarcity issues and health issues. All these issues are interlinked. Therefore we need to link this dots."

The Rio+20 summit, to be held May 28-June 6 next year, aims to do that by setting a blueprint for environmental sustainability that also addresses poverty eradication and social inclusion.