Post date: Jun 21, 2012 10:31:52 AM
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (JUNE 20, 2012) (REUTERS) - CNN founder and United Nations Foundation chairman Ted Turner was in Brazil on Wednesday (June 20) for the opening of the Rio+20 summit.
CNN Founder Ted Turner says at the Rio+20 summit that he started the United Nations Foundation after a failed bid to give the UN a billion dollar donation.
Heads of state and high-level ministers from all over the world are meeting in Rio de Janeiro for a three-day U.N. conference on sustainable development, but expectations are low for a groundbreaking agreement.
Speaking in Rio, Turner said that at one point he had started the United Nations Foundation in 1998 after a failed attempt to give the UN a billion dollars.
"Back quite a few years ago the United States was about a billion dollars in arrears on its dues to the United Nations and the United Nations couldn't pay the peace keepers and was having trouble meeting the payroll and I though it was terrible and I had a couple billion dollars then that I had made at CNN and just decided I'd try and give a billion dollars to the United Nations to make up for the United States not paying," he said.
"So, I called up my lawyers and said 'write up a check to the UN for a billion dollars.' And then he called me back about an hour later and said 'Ted, I'm sorry the United Nations can not take donations from individuals or from corporations. It can only take money from nation states.' So, I thought about starting a country and I thought I'd buy a little island next to Richard Branson's and call it Confusion and represent the State of Confusion. But that didn't work either but I did find out that I could make a parallel foundation, The United Nations Foundation and give the billion dollars to it and have that money go working with the United Nations for UN causes and that worked. So, we did it. It's really worked out well and it's started. Now the United Nations gets billions of dollars every year from both corporations and individuals and the rules have been changed. So, we changed the rules. We're happy to do it," Turner added.
The United Nations Foundation now serves as the largest source of private funding to the UN with donations coming from corporations, non-governmental organizations and private individuals. They are involved in a variety of programs dealing with issues such as child healthcare, climate change, sustainable development and women's issues.
The Rio+20 summit comes 20 years after the first Rio Earth summit in 1992 paved the way for a global treaty on biodiversity, and the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases, which is due to expire this year.
Diplomats have been negotiating on behalf of their respective countries for over a year. They drew up a 49-page draft agreement on Tuesday, which will be presented to leaders for adoption by the end of the week.
The agreement's draft text, which is not expected to undergo major changes by Friday, was criticised for being too weak, vaguely worded and for watering down important proposals.