Minister
Lee Maan-ee |
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
An international conference on the environmental effects on children's health will take place from Monday to Wednesday in Busan.
At the Third World Health Organization International Conference on Children's Health and the Environment, more than 600 child health and other experts, as well as civic group members and government officials from 60 different countries will discuss the future of child health and what impact the environment has on it.
Among the attendees will be Environment Minister Lee Maan-ee, Vice Health Minister Yoo Young-hak, head of the Environment and Labor Committee Chu Mi-ae, WHO director of public health and the environment Maria Neira and Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol, head of the Chulabhorn Research Institute in Thailand.
The experts will discuss ways to provide a healthy environment for all children. According to the Ministry of Environment, more than three million children under five years old, mostly in developing or under developed countries die of diseases linked to adverse environmental conditions.
Eight plenary sessions and 18 sub-conferences under different themes will be held from morning through the evening.
A welcoming banquet and an introductory dinner will be held to greet the guests. More than 260 reports will be presented at the event and special sessions to allow ordinary citizens to understand about children's health and welfare with regard to the environment will be held outside the Busan Exhibition and Convention Center.
The conference will feature presentations on indoor and outdoor air pollution; water purity; sanitation and hygiene; chemical hazards; disease vectors; and global environmental change. It will also address how to deal with emergency situations or outbreaks of environmental origins through the Busan Pledge that will be announced at the end of the event.
The ministry said that in so-called developed countries, the environment was also a real threat though in a different form. Uncontrolled modernization leading to severe road traffic, deforestation, climate change among others were not just a problem for a certain types of states these days, it said.
They contribute to asthma, obesity, childhood cancers, neuro-developmental disorders and certain congenital defects. These days, concerns are rising over chemicals used in items such as cosmetics and toys that were once considered safe, the ministry continued.
``Children are most often the first to suffer the consequences of environmental emergencies and natural disasters,'' Park Mi-ja, a ministry official, said explaining the background to the meeting.
``We hope the event will enhance Korea's image in the world as an environmentally friendly and health-aware country,'' Park added.
The event will also be held in a carbon neutral way with participants paying for the amount of carbon they have emitted throughout the conference. Last year at the Ramsar Convention held in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, more than 26 million won was saved in this manner.
bjs@koreatimes.co.kr
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