Chancellor Gerhard Schröder used the podium at the United Nations’ earth summit in Johannsburg to push for the increased use of renewable energies and urged delegates to present a final action paper that offered “concrete goals."

The German chancellor (photo), who was the first head-of-state from the European Union to speak at the conference, alluded to the recent flood catastrophe in Eastern Europe and Germany as a sign that the time to act on greenhouse gas reduction was now.

“It’s … about the future of our children,” he told delegates at the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, which will wind up this Wednesday. “That’s why this conference should encourage the states who have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol, to do that as quickly as possible so that it can come into effect next year.”

Kyoto Protocol a sticking point at summit

The protocol, agreed on in 1997, calls on its signatories to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from their 1990 stand by 5.2 percent by 2012. The USA and Australia, among other nations, have so far refused to sign it. The protocol, therefore, is now relying on the Russian parliament’s ratification before it can take effect.

The protocol remains one of the unresolved disputes as the conference winds its way down. After last week’s delegations, the first governmental ministers started arriving in Johannesburg over the weekend to smooth out differences on disputes over renewable energies and access to water before the arrival of Schröder and other heads of state on Monday.

As at the inaugural Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, government leaders will affix their signature to a 70-page action plan at the conclusion of the summit. The agreement will aim to provide a blueprint on global environmental and developmental policy over the next decade.

Solar, wind power still an obstacle

Around 95 percent of the plan has been agreed on, according to reports from the summit, but the remaining 5 percent contains a host of controversial topics – chief among them a quota on renewable energy.

Germany, along with the European Union and a clutch of other nations, wants renewable energies, such as wind and solar power to comprise 15 percent of the world’s energy use by 2010 - 2 percent more than it is now.

The United States and smaller, oil-producing nations are against setting such a timetable. Environmental organizations are saying the plan isn’t aggressive enough.

Schröder used his speech to praise his country's commitment to renewable energy and urge the rest of the conference to follow Germany's lead.

“With the efficient use of energy and the massive expansion of the renewable energy sector, we will have pointed the way to the future,” Schröder told conference participants, among them United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan and South African President Thabo Mbeki.

He said the German government would spend 100 million euro a year over the next five years to work with developing countries on increasing their use of renewable energy. He also said his country would take part in a global network of energy agencies agreed on Sunday and invited conference participants to an international renewable energy conference in Germany.

Drinking water a crucial step in fighting poverty

Echoing his development and aid minister, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, who attended the conference earlier, Schröder called for a more effective battle against poverty. The EU member states, he said, will raise their public aid budget from the current 26 billion euro to 35 billion euro in 2006.

Providing clean drinking water to populations in developing countries will also form a central plank of the fight against poverty.

Earlier German environmental minister Jürgen Trittin told DW-TV that the reduction of poverty will "only be possible with access to the basic requirement of life: water."

Germany and other countries have pushed halving the roughly 2.5 billion people without access to drinkable water by 2015.

"Without a successful war against poverty, there can be no global environmental rescue and also no lasting peace," Schröder said.