bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1992) — Fall 1992 // Automne 1992, pp. 21–24
In the past two decades the word “environment” has acquired many meanings and all of the human, political, economic, financial, social and scientific attributes of a challenging public issue. It comprises, for example, the preservation of the biosphere, the conservation of the earth’s resources, the protection of our health, a vague perception of sustainable development, and the management of the international “commons” beyond the jurisdiction of any and all nations. It is a word which generates extreme emotions and sends demonstrators to the barricades. It has led one Western government to sink a ship which was engaged in freelance environmental protection enterprises.
What are the reasons which have brought “the environment” from its quiet, placid home to the top of the world’s agenda in the 1990s?
The Environment: A Public Policy Issue
In 1950, 2-1/2 billion people lived on our planet. By 1990 — only 40 years later — that figure had more than doubled, and it is expected to reach 6 billion by the end of this decade. Ninety-five per cent of that growth was in the Third World.
As virtually every country on the planet was compelled because of its own internal population pressures and the expectations of its people for a better life, to join in the race toward unrestrained economic growth, it was inevitable that industrial and agricultural development would have some damaging impact on their own and on the earth’s environment.
There are probably few people on earth who have not been touched and hurt by some instance of environmental damage — drought and famine, pollution of lakes, rivers, the air and the seas, the decline in forests, land erosion and soil degradation, the depletion of the resources of the seas, the disposal of industrial, urban and nuclear wastes. In Canada, we can add more specific examples such as the consequences of the development of hydro-electric power and the impact on the lands of native peoples, the “freeze” on the Arctic pipeline, the depletion of the Atlantic fishing stocks, the death of hundreds of lakes, the destruction of sugar maple forests, and the threats to Puget Sound.
While men and women have been concerned about the adverse effects of deforestation and agricultural development for more than 2,000 years, the risks to the health of the biosphere and the depletion of the earth’s resources began to appear more widely as the industrial revolution developed and spread. The damaging impact of economic growth on the environment was not, however, generally taken as a serious threat to society: indeed it was regarded as an inevitable consequence of development which could be absorbed by the seemingly unlimited resiliency of the earth.
Governments and the private sector had taken some measures to protect the environment, its resources and wildlife. But these fragmented efforts were not enough. Comprehensive national, regional and international programs of conservation and pollution control were needed. And they were needed quickly.
The Stockholm Conference on the Environment: 1972
It was Sweden which brought “the environment” before governments and the international community in the United Nations in 1967. In the following year, the General Assembly gave its approval to a global conference and it later agreed that it should be held in Stockholm in 1972.
The Canadian Government co-sponsored Sweden’s Resolution in the Assembly as an indication of its own commitment to the efforts to begin work on more effective national and international protection programs. Canadians had become aware of the risks to their lakes, rivers and forests, to the Arctic regions, to transboundary pollution along the entire frontier, the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Many saw it as a means of developing international law which would help Canada protect its environment and its resources and, coincidentally, extend its jurisdiction over the Arctic and the seas off its east and west coasts. The UN would provide another way to address such regional and global issues which would serve their interests.
The idea of such an international conference was, understandably, greeted with scepticism by some and was opposed by others in Canada and throughout the world. For many, the concept of “the environment” was too broad and imprecise, and a world conference devoted to it and with representatives from so many countries at different stages of development and with different interests, could not reasonably be expected to produce practicable results that governments and the private sector could use.
Representatives of business and industry saw the Conference as a threat to their freedom of action, and the probable imposition of pollution controls and conservation requirements which would add to their production costs and force them to increase prices. These additional costs would make it more difficult for them to compete successfully in tough international markets — unless, of course, all countries agreed to apply the same environmental protection measures.
For developing countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the proposed Conference did not seem to offer them much immediate help. Their most urgent and important priority was to provide for their growing population and the desperate needs of their people. For the poor in many developing countries, there was no other way of life: there were no alternative, adequate sources of food, fuel, shelter and clothing. Their existence came daily, directly and only from the land on which they lived. Poverty often compels people to damage further the land, the resource base, of their community.
Developing countries also shared the attitude of some sectors in the industrialized world that, whatever benefits might be obtained from environmental protection and conservation measures, they would surely add to the costs of their industrial and agricultural production and thus make it more difficult for them to market their limited exports abroad. Such measures, however justifiable to the West, were a luxury they could not afford. Moreover, developing countries saw that they would be obliged to buy the know-how and technology from the industrialized countries.
For similar reasons, many in Canada shared the scepticism about the value of such a conference. But they also felt that Canada, so rich in resources and so large in area, had the capacity and resiliency to carry and absorb without serious consequences whatever degradation economic growth might cause. Some damage was an inevitable cost of development and it was neither irreversible nor irreparable.
The Results of the Stockholm Conference
The Stockholm Conference achieved remarkable results. It reached agreement on the major environmental risks facing countries and their peoples and on measures for responding to those risks nationally and internationally.
The Conference, firstly, approved a Declaration on the Human Environment. It contained two principles, introduced by Canada, which proved to be of considerable importance and value in the subsequent evolution of environmental treaties, legislation and programs. They state, in part, that:
“states have the right to exploit their own resources … and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction; and states shall cooperate to develop further the international law regarding the liability and compensation for victims of pollution and other environmental damage caused by activities within the jurisdiction or control of such states to areas beyond their jurisdiction.”
The Conference’s second important decision was its approval of an Action Plan consisting of 109 recommendations to governments, the UN system, non-governmental and international organizations to create new ways of collaboration. It also proposed new programs for dealing with the environmental risks and damage.
Thirdly, the Conference approved the establishment of a new UN agency — the UN Environment Program — to coordinate and promote national and international conservation and the protection of the environment. It also recommended the creation of a special fund of $100 million which would be used to help developing countries carry forward their work.
But the Conference achieved more than the specific objectives on its agenda. First it served to display new dimensions of the magnitude, complexities, political and financial costs, and some of the relationships between economic growth, social development, resources and the environment.
Second, the Conference informed governments and the international community that the conservation of the world’s environment and the management of its resources could not be left to uncontrolled and unregulated development. Nor could it be left to the strongest countries. New policies, new structures, new international law and, above all, the political will to design and manage a new world system were essential pre-conditions to rescuing the environment from further degradation.
A New Look at the Environment in the 1980s
During the late 1970s and in the 1980s there were significant and welcome changes in attitudes toward the environment.
The first was the accumulating evidence of the gradual degradation of the state of the environment. In addition, specific disasters such as the Torrey Canyon oil spill, Three Mile Island, the Sahelian drought, Bhopal, Chernobyl and other frequent oil spills became well-known, even if quickly forgotten events. Beyond them, however, people and governments became increasingly aware of other damaging consequences of economic growth such as deforestation, the threat to many species of wild and marine life, poisoned lakes and polluted air.
The continued growth in the world’s population, most living in poverty, is at the centre of the most serious issues facing the world, and especially developing countries. Although it remains an issue which still sends people to the barricades, many governments are now attempting to introduce programs, however modest, to persuade families to reduce the number of children they bring into the world. Any decline will be slight, however, and will have little significant impact on economic and social development and hence on the world’s resources, for decades to come.
A third significant change in attitudes has been the recognition that unrestrained economic growth in any country is likely to cause some damage to the environment and to contribute to the wasteful use of resources. Deforestation, land erosion, soil degradation and drought are obvious examples. Furthermore it was now readily acknowledged that no country on the planet could escape such global risks as trans-boundary air and water pollution and the depletion of the marine life and fishing resources of the world’s oceans. And, we have recently added to the list such new threats as global warming and the depletion of the earth’s ozone layer.
A fourth change in attitudes has been the recognition by developing countries that they are already suffering from the environmental degradation flowing from their own industrial, agricultural and urban development and from global sources of pollution. However, it will be much more difficult for many of these countries, burdened by a rapidly growing population and the inescapable need to develop their economy, to introduce the protection and conservation measures needed to reverse the trends of degradation. Poverty drives people to destroy their own environment.
Having acknowledged that change, the developing world continues to hold the northern industrialized countries largely responsible for the increasing deterioration in the health of the earth’s environment and of the biosphere, and the wasteful use and misuse of the world’s resources. Developed countries cannot reproach Third World countries, for example, for the destruction of their forests when the North has already cut much of its forest cover. It can only offer to find and finance ways of helping developing countries avoid the same thoughtless use of their resources.
The science community and academic institutions have devoted an increasing amount of funds and effort to programs of research into virtually every dimension of the environment and environmental change. Their contribution has been indispensable to our understanding of these risks and to the formulation of programs of conservation. Among the more dramatic discoveries of recent years was the depletion of the ozone layer as a result of the widespread use of chemicals which find their way into the atmosphere. A second, startling discovery, has been climate-warming caused by the increase in pollutants and gases in the atmosphere which have served to trap the earth’s heat close to the surface. If that trend continues we shall see low-lying lands and cities disappearing under the seas.
In the late 1970s a new push was needed to revitalize and give fresh direction to protection and conservation programs. It was time for an up-to-date vision of the world to the year 2000 and beyond. A new evaluation of the consequences of continued population growth and economic development on the biosphere, the earth’s resources and on its people was needed.
The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
It was against this background, that the Canadian Representative to UNEP proposed in the Governing Council in 1981 that an international, independent commission of eminent people should be appointed by the UN General Assembly to carry out this program of investigation. Such a commission would carry the authority of the UN and have the clout to speak to the most senior people in governments and the private sector. It was also considered important that the Commission should be appointed by, and report to, the General Assembly. Although the Assembly’s approval or acceptance does not carry the force of law nor does it oblige governments to implement its decisions, it does have some political and moral value and weight which may encourage governments to make up their minds about the issues, to respond to them and to be held accountable.
The General Assembly approved the creation of the UN Commission on Environment and Development in 1983. The concept of “development” was added to ensure the environment and development were taken, as they should be, as a totally interdependent process.
The Commission was chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, later to become the Prime Minister of Norway, and comprised members from the developed and developing world, Eastern Europe, the USSR and China.
The WCED described its mandate in these words:
- To re-examine the critical issues of environment and development and to formulate innovative, concrete and realistic action proposals to deal with them;
- to strengthen international cooperation on environment and development and to assess and propose new forms of cooperation that can break out of existing patterns and influence policies and events in the direction of needed change; and
- to raise the level of understanding and commitment to action on the part of individuals, voluntary organizations, businesses, institutions, and governments.
The Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development
The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (also known as the “Brundtland” Commission after its Chairman, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime Minister of Norway) undertook an exhaustive program of work and visited representative countries on every continent, including Canada. It was Canada, incidentally, through its Permanent Representative to UNEP which originated and helped to establish the Commission as a forceful means of bringing “the environment and development” to the top of the political agenda of the international community. The WCED concluded that, as a consequence of the world’s increasing population and economic development, pressures on the earth’s resources and the biosphere would continue to grow until such time as there were effective measures to arrest and reverse the trends. It further concluded that these trends, if they continued unchecked, would threaten the survival of mankind.
The Report, entitled Our Common Future, declared that governments must act now to reverse these trends, to re-design public policies in all economic and social sectors and in population control, and to collaborate in the development and strengthening of conservation programs in a world in which environmental degradation knows no national boundaries and the concept of sovereignty is out of date.
The essential key to sound economic and social development in a healthy environment has been imaginatively captured in the Report in the phrase “sustainable development”. It is not a new concept, but it has been given a new meaning. It is now one which must be applied in a comprehensive approach to development in the future if the earth and its peoples are to survive.
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
Governments, through the United Nations, accepted the challenge and a second world conference on environment and development was held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Maurice Strong, again Secretary- General of the Conference — called the “Earth Summit” — stated: “This will be the most important meeting in the history of humanity.”
The conference was the largest ever convened by the UN: 20,000 to 30,000 individuals from governments, non-governmental organizations and the media attended. Many presidents and prime ministers also participated in response to the invitation from the UN General Assembly. The Global Forum of NGOs was organized to run in parallel with the Conference in Rio de Janeiro.
The Conference was among the most difficult in the history of the United Nations. It brought together representatives from most of the then 171 member states to consider and act on a complex agenda within a period of twelve days. Even though four meetings of the Preparatory Committee had given focus and direction to the Conference, it was still a formidable task to produce solid results in that short stretch of time. In the end, global consensus on major changes for new national and international environmental programs proved impossible to achieve.
Essentially, the 1992 Conference focused on three broad concepts. An “Earth Charter” covering a number of principles aimed at the protection of the environment, conservation and development, was the primary focus for discussion. “Agenda 21” was intended to be a global action plan for the 21st century to guide governments and the private sector toward policies integrating economic growth and environmental conservation. New demands from the developing world for a substantial increase in new funding from industrialized countries were made in Rio to finance new programs intended to contribute to national policies for sustainable development and environmental conservation. Developing countries wanted not only money but also access to new technology on a preferential basis to apply conservation and protection measures in their regions. Most important of all, they sought massive flows of assistance to help them to alleviate the poverty of their peoples.
Negotiations attempted to reach agreement at least on the broad outlines, if not the actual texts, of conventions on climate change and measures to reduce the flow of destructive chemicals into the atmosphere; on preserving the biodiversity of the earth’s living animal and plant resources; and on the conservation and sustainable use of the world’s forest resources. It was the original intention to finish up the conference with a “bang” by having all the heads of government and ministers in attendance at the conference sign these texts in a major signing ceremony which would be the focus of a significant media event. Things did not quite develop in the way forecasted, although the event was in fact a major global media event which in itself was a significant achievement.
While the formal UN conference was taking place, an informal counter-conference (the “Global Forum”) also occurred in Rio which was organized by hundreds of nongovernmental organizations many of which are well-organized, well-financed and well-led. This other event was the more popular, spontaneous and interesting event — at least in the public perception both on the ground in Rio and in the global media. The bright ideas seemed to emanate from this other event which successfully turned up the heat and applied tremendous pressure on the more staid, bureaucratic UN conference to move further and faster toward the development of genuine environmental conservation and protection.
The key to eventual success is achieving the political will of all governments, and especially those of the industrialized countries, to act now. The governments of the Economic G-7 Summit countries, the Commonwealth Heads of Government, and other national leaders all offered their support to this “Earth Summit”, but concrete decisions at the conference proved to be elusive and a tough test for their collective political commitment. It will not be easy for any government to commit the necessary resources in these years of global recession, massive debt burdens in many developing countries, and bankruptcy of the dream and of many government programs inspired by the former USSR, and of the collapse of the Soviet empire itself. However, eventually, priorities will have to be agreed upon and the means of achieving solid action will have to be found.
It must be admitted that the Rio Conference fell short of achieving the minimum results expected of it. This collective failure of political will, however, may yet prove to be the necessary stimulus toward forcing governments to be more realistic and more cooperative, to take more responsible and tougher decisions to preserve the earth’s health and welfare for their people and future generations.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1992) — Fall 1992 // Automne 1992, pp. 21–24. Read the rest of this issue →
