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UN environmental talks dubbed failure due to lack of funds

Ecologists berated Washington and Tokyo for failing to come up with sufficient funding for urgent environmental issues after a UN conference on combating desertification ended on Saturday in Madrid without agreement on a budget for a 10-year action plan.

The Ecologists in Action pressure group, attending as an observer, dubbed the conference a failure, despite the plan being approved, because no money was pledged to implement it.

The group pinned the blame on Japan and the US for the setback.

Participating nations drew up a 10-year action plan to "revitalize" a 1994 UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCDD), which 191 nations signed in Paris, and provide some financial backing.

But finding the cash proved a sticking point, leaving 70 non-governmental organizations present to criticize "the constant passiveness" and "absence of intervention" by UNCCD signatory nations.

"There was a problem in negotiating the budget," a UNCCD spokeswoman said after a meeting that went beyond its Friday deadline into the early hours of Saturday in a last-ditch attempt to achieve a concrete outcome.

The UNCCD grew out of the 1992 Earth Summit. Since the summit, growing evidence of climate change and desertification, which environmental experts say threatens up to one-third of the world's population, has increased the sense of urgency.

But after trying to thrash out a budgetary framework throughout Friday night the meeting ended amid opposition led by Japan.

The Japanese had originally given backing for a 5 percent rise in the budget, projected at 17 million euros (US$23 million) for next year to 2009.

"There was a consensus until three in the morning, but they changed their minds and there was no agreement," Ecologists in Action coordinator Theo Oberhuber said.

Organizers earlier had estimated economic losses stemming from soil degradation at an annual 47.6 billion euros.

Ecologists in Action said it saw the event as a failure.

"Even if the 10-year plan was passed, there exists, in the absence of a budget, a major risk that it will not be applied," the organization said.

Participating nations will now have to go back to the drawing board to thrash out costs.

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