11 April 2008, Kyiv - In September 2000 at the Millennium Summit in New
York Ukraine signed the UN “Millennium Declaration”. By signing the Declaration
Ukraine took on the responsibility to achieve the Millennium Goals in the
sphere of development till
2015 in six development areas: ensuring poverty reduction, quality life-long education,
sustainable environmental development, improving maternal health and reducing
child mortality, reducing and slowing down the spread of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis
and promoting gender equality.
The
Millennium Development Goals for Ukraine represent 6 goals and 13 specific
tasks for a long-term
perspective adapted considering the peculiarities of the country's national
development. In order to achieve the designated goals and desired level of
development it is necessary to conduct such economic policy that will
benefit the whole Ukrainian society.
Therefore,
sustainable environmental development has to be a top priority in Ukraine’s state
policy. Problems connected with this issue have become the main topic for
discussion during the press-conference, conducted by UN in Ukraine in the
building of National Journalist Union of Ukraine.
One of the
most critical issues for Ukraine
is the affect of environment on the life and health of population. From
experts’ point of view thanks to structural changes in economy and improvement
of regulative mechanism in health protection sphere during last years a
relative stabilization of ecological situation in Ukraine. Activities on introducing
the mechanisms of Kyoto Protocol are continuing in Ukraine.
Main tasks on the way to achieve the Goal and improve ecological situation are the following:
Increase the
proportion of people with access to clean drinking water by 12%.
Use of low-quality drinking water affects to some extent Ukraine being behind developed countries on average life expectancy and high
mortality rate.
In 2006 the population of almost all cities of our
country, 88% of urban-type communities and villages was provided for a
centralized water supply.
Stabilize
air pollution from stationary sources
by
2015.
According to data of State Statistics Committee of Ukraine during 2007 over 11 thousands of industrial enterprises conducted emissions of poisonous substances into the atmosphere. Almost 4.8 millions of tons of poisonous substances got into the atmosphere from these
enterprises, which is 8% more than in 2005. But in 1990 this figure was twice
as high.
According to
a new 2007/2008 UN Development Programme's Human Development Report 'Fighting
climate change: Human solidarity in a divided world', Ukraine ranks 18th after France, Brazil
and Spain
among 30 top countries with the deepest carbon footprints.
Last year 103 kg of emissions accounted for each Ukrainian or eight tons per square kilometer of the territory of Ukraine.
As
the Report says, how the world deals with climate change today will have a
direct bearing on the human development prospects of a large section of
humanity. Failure will consign the poorest 40 percent of the world's population
- some 2.6 bn people - to a future of diminished opportunity.
The Report
argues that if people in the developing world had generated per capita CO2
emissions at the same level as people in North America,
we would need the atmosphere of nine planets to deal with the consequences,
while we have only one planet!
Today Ukraine is an active participant of international negotiation process and
is developing bilateral cooperation on the climate change issues. In Ukraine the
process of forming of new mechanism of regulation of poisonous substances
emission into atmosphere is being finalized today. Norms of maximum permissible
emissions into the atmosphere from stationary sources are being
developed right now. Introduction of new ecologically clean technologies shall
cause a large reduction of poisonous substances emissions into the atmosphere.
Expand the network of natural and biospheric reserves and national parks up to 10,4% from overall territory of Ukraine.
According to experts the
extension of total area of territory and units of naturally-reserved fund keeps
that positive tendency. Comparing to 2005 natural-reserved fund of Ukraine increased by 47.4 thousand of hectares
or by 0.08% and made up 4.73% of the total area of Ukraine in 2006.
Total area of land belonging to the forest reserves makes up 10.8 million of hectares, out of which 9.5 million of hectares are covered by forest flora
(or 15.7% of the territory
of Ukraine).
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11.04.08
