The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster

Chernobyl’s nuclear accident has become a great tragedy for the Belarussian people. The two thirds of the republic’s territory is contaminated by different radioactive elements. Official means of mass information ensured the population that only 3 districts in Gomel region were polluted with radioactive isotopes. People lived in contaminated areas, all the population ate contaminated foodstuffs, but nobody knew this. People suffer from different diseases caused by irradiation, but they don’t know the reason of their troubles.

International efforts in solving environmental problems

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held from 3 June through 14 June in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The major accomplishments of UNCED centered around the creation of United Nation’s organizations. The most important of these bodies is the Sustainable Development Commission that was given the task of furthering the work of creating sustainable development policies and procedures throughout the world. The Summit also adopted the Rio Declaration that includes 27 principles. These principles, then, provide a framework for the world’s diplomats in their efforts to improve both environmental and economic conditions around the world. The Rio principles included:

The idea of sustainable development

Sustainable development is a buzzword found in much environmental and some economics literature these days. Certainly the idea of sustainable development has become increasingly popular in the contemporary world. New books on sustainable development have been appearing with increasing rapidity since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June of 1992. The word sustainable comes to us from the foresters of the 18th and 19th centuries in Europe.

Thus, in this original idea, sustainable means that as a resource is used, it is replaced by growing additional amounts of the resource.

The Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement linked to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The major feature of the Kyoto Protocol is that it sets binding targets for 37 industrialized countries and the European community for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The major distinction between the Protocol and the Convention is that while the Convention encouraged industrialized countries to stabilize GHG emissions, the Protocol commits them to do so. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005.

GREAT BRITAN

The United Kingdom is an important manufacturing and trading nation.

Service industries account for about two-thirds of the United Kingdom's gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP is the total value of goods and services produced within the country annually. More than 70 percent of British workers are employed in service industries.

Community, government, and personal services contribute a larger portion of the United Kingdom's GDP than any other service industry group. This group employs more people than any other industry in Britain

Finance, insurance, real estate, and business services rank second among the service industries of Britain in terms of the GDP. Most of the country's financial companies operate in London, one of the world's leading financial cities.

Manufacturing. The United Kingdom is a leading industrial nation.

The United Kingdom is one of the world's chief centres of printing and publishing. British companies print paper money and postage stamps for many countries.
Agriculture. Britain imports about a third of its food supply. Farmland covers about 70 percent of the United Kingdom's land area. The nation has about 240,000 farms.

Mining. The United Kingdom is a major world producer of petroleum, coal, and natural gas. These three fuels account for about 85 percent of the value of total mineral production in the country.

Fishing. The United Kingdom is an important fishing nation. The British fishing industry supplies about 925,000 short tons (840,000 metric tons) of fish yearly. About half this catch comes from the waters surrounding Britain, especially the North Sea

Energy sources. Fuel-burning plants provide about 70 percent of Britain's electric power. Nuclear energy provides most of the remaining electric power.

International trade. The United Kingdom ranks as a leading trading nation. Britain once imported chiefly raw materials and exported mostly manufactured products. However, manufactured goods now account for about 85 percent of British imports and about 80 percent of its exports.

Communication. Britain has about 100 daily newspapers. About 15 have nationwide circulation. Their main offices are in London. The Sun and the Daily Mirror have the largest circulations. Leading papers include The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and The Independent.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30