Thank you, Chair.
The Local Authority Major Group welcomes the opportunity for dialogue at this session. We
appreciate delegations having raised the issue of Major Group participation at CSD19, such as
the questions from the US just now on and the statement by Hungary on behalf of the EU this
morning.
Moving from process to substance, Cities and Local Authorities need to be involved, in
particular in the fields of Waste, Transport and Sustainable Consumption and Production. We are
pleased that many delegations realize this and appropriate references have been included in the
text.
Before I discuss the implementing role of Local Authorities, allow me to state that we strongly
support including a list of programs in the text on 10 Year Framework of Programs on
Sustainable Consumption and Production. As the Youth representative just said, a Framework
without such a list would be an empty shell. In the list of Programs, we hope to see a program
especially engaging cities, given the important role of urban areas and Local Governments in
Sustainable Consumption and Production.
Hoping that we can get to a strong CSD19 outcome, Local Authorities worldwide will be
involved in implementation. On waste management, many local governments have set ambitious
targets, for example tough reduction rates in waste going to landfills. Regarding transport,
designing more compact cities will greatly reduce the daily transport usage of over half of the
global population. As a subset of SCP, the combined global purchasing power of municipal
facilities like hospitals, schools and municipal administrations is massive and can be steered
towards sustainable procurement. These are just three examples of the numerous ways in which
Local Governments can support the implementation of CSD19 decision.
As Major Groups, we are also here to remind all of us that whether we sit in city councils,
national parliaments or UN conference rooms, the role of political leaders is to govern in the way
the people and the planet need. For the issues we are discussing here, we have no time to loose.
We hope that we can all together ? governments, UN bodies, Local Authorities and all
stakeholder groups ? move ahead, on the themes of CSD 19 and towards Rio+20.
