"Children and youth, as the future generations, do not wish to inherit a toxic, radioactive, dirty and carbon-driven world", said Juan Hoffmaister of the Global Youth Coalition speaking in a conference room packed with delegates, including representatives of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations. With the 15th Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD) slated to begin at the end of April 2007, stakeholders held a preparatory meeting at UN Headquarters in New York on 26 February.

CSD has served as the UN high-level forum for sustainable development issues since 1992, when it was established by the UN General Assembly to ensure effective follow-up to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro. CSD meets annually at UN Headquarters; its focus themes for 2006/2007 are energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution/atmosphere and climate change.

"It is self-evident to youth that nuclear energy and 'clean' fossil fuels are not viable options for truly sustainable development", said Mr. Hoffmaister, who represented the coalition of over 1,000 youth organizations. He called on efforts to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy as the most effective way to ensure sustainable growth. Several speakers at the meeting, including Gilbert Glaser, Senior Advisor of the International Council for Science, included both nuclear and "clean" fossil fuel-based energy as viable sources of energy for a world where demand for it will soar at the same time as society attempts to mitigate climate change by reducing carbon emissions.

Mr. Hoffmaister told the UN Chronicle that although nuclear energy and "clean" fossil fuel sources, such as coal and natural gas-fired plants designed to emit less carbon dioxide, "may appear to be clean right now, in the long run we will have to deal with the waste they create. Although they might be better than what was done before, they are not sustainable and cannot be thought of as goals".

Small projects that involved renewable sources, such as solar and biomass, would be more effective in reaching rural communities than a large nuclear plant in a capital, he said, mentioning successful projects funded by the Global Environmental Facility through small grants. One such project is in Costa Rica and Nicaragua, where women purchased solar-powered ovens for cooking, which not only improved indoor air quality (indoor air pollution causes 1.6 million deaths a year), but also reduced deforestation and saved time that could be used for other activities. He added that natural waste produced at pig farms could be placed in biomass processors that "look like big plastic bags" and then be transformed into methane that could be used for cooking and heating.

"We want to address the issues that concern us right now, so that in 30 years we do not blame our grandparents for having polluted our environment and have to see our children without hope of living in a clean environment", Mr. Hoffmaister said.