The Meeting of the Sub-Committee on Environmental Issues, Global Warming, and Planting Billions of Trees throughout Asia
Damascus, July 21 2008
The Sub-Committee on Environmental Issues, Global Warming, and Planting Billions of Trees throughout Asia held its meeting on 21-22 July 2008 in Damascus, the Syrian Arab Republic. APA Delegations from Bahrain, Bangladesh, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey participated in this meeting.
The Sub-Committee exchanged views on different elements and ideas in the Report of the Secretary-General with a view to pursuing its objectives. The Sub-Committee took note of the suggestions for further steps to be taken as mentioned in the Report of the Secretary-General.
Participating delegates further made the following points:
a) The hazardous impacts of the U.S. policies and Israeli occupation in West Asia including nuclear activities, dumping chemical wastes and dangerous materials and ammunitions used in the war in Iraq and the War of July 2006 against Lebanon, are the major concern expressed by all of the participating delegates.
b) Certain Western governments, particularly the United States, bear the biggest bulk of responsibility for the present catastrophic environmental situation in the world not only by continuous refraining from acceding to the Kyoto Protocol and
committing to it but by supporting such anti-environmental actions of Israel who
systematically cleanses the Palestinian and Lebanese lands from so many precious olive trees and other plantations which are considered the most valuable assets of the defenseless residents of those lands. Destroying trees by many years of bombing and uprooting has deprived those areas from one of the most effective means of protecting the environment and has also contributed to the global warming in these areas. The same anti-environmental actions have been practiced by foreign forces in Iraq in recent years now and are deplored by all participating delegations.
The Sub-Committee recommended a resolution on “Environmental Issues, Global Warming, and Planting Billions of Trees throughout Asia” to the first APA Executive Council meeting of 2008 in which it was decided to hold the next session of the Sub-Committee in the Republic of Korea in 2009 as proposed by the Korean Parliament.
