The Independent 7 August 1997 Earth Summit-II and Bangladesh Diplomacy by its very essence and ambience has been of varied order.
Environmental diplomacy is merely an innovative appendage in the diplomatic vocabulary.
Two successive summits on the issue at the global plane provide ample testimony to the dawning of this pattern. The US President Bill Clinton, though one of the last to address the gathering, was among 41 other heads of state and 44 environment ministers, including our own, Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, addressed the session in the 5-day relay of 5 minute summit speeches. In the pre-summit talks diplomats also already debated what conclusion to reach that will end the summit. The specific agenda of the summit included world's vanishing forests, dying species, rising gas emissions, declining fish stocks, and most importantly, finance, essential for progress in all other issues. His youthful Prime Minister, Tony Blair, sought to boost Britain's international standing.