World Summit in Jo'burg

As Trimble confirms his attendence at the WSSD comment has been slow to gather about this major world event in Ireland, North or South. The Belfast Telegraph gave editorial space to it to today:

“With Northern Ireland rapidly running out of landfill capacity such questions suddenly seem pertinent. The mountains of redundant fridges are the tip of an environmental iceberg.”

Even those who are going to take a ringside at the biggest event since a similar summit in Rio ten years ago, The Irish Times outlines some dissent within the 50 strong Irish contingent:

“The Irish delegation includes representatives of some of the principal environment and development groups which last week denounced Ireland’s record on sustainable development; they are already complaining that they have been sidelined in the summit negotiations.”

A case of, as the Daily Summit weblog quotes from Jack Freeman:

“They have won the right to speak, the right to be heard, the right to have their message delivered, not only to the summit delegates but, through the media, to the world at large. But that doesn’t mean that the government delegates, or anybody else, have to pay attention to what they are saying.”

Otherwise, despite a busy schedule, there is not much interest as yet in Northern Ireland.

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