ERGEN,
Norway--For three rainy days environment ministers from over
20 countries gathered for an informal meeting at this city
enfolded at the crook of seven mountains and fish-boned by
seven fjords. Their informal discussions on the most
pressing issues on the global environmental agenda took
place at the Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, alongside 14th
century Hanseatic buildings neatly topped with triangular
cookie-cutter roofs and scrupulously painted red, blue,
yellow, and green (they are on the UNESCO World Heritage
List).
The lovely surroundings offered a stark contrast to the
the testing issues being discussed behind closed doors:
global warming, massive flooding, land degradation, toxic
gas emissions, polluted water resources, and the list goes
on. To make things worse, the momentum achieved following
the 1992 Earth Summit has largely worn off and environmental
concerns seem to have dropped way down on the global agenda.
"Rio + 10 is coming up in two years and the
conference on climate change will take place in two
months,” Mohamed T. El-Ashry, chief executive officer and
chairman of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) told The
Earth Times. "We need to wake up!"
The need to take stock of what has been achieved so far
was palpable. "Many beautiful words have been said
since the Rio summit," said Ghana’s environment
minister and co-chair of the meeting Cletus A. Avoka.
"Now we need to see some action. Rio + 10 should not be
taken as a business as usual activity. It should have
achievable objectives aimed at addressing the challenges of
sustainable development in the new millennium."
One of the main topics of discussion regarding the Rio +
10 process was the need to incorporate environmental issues
into the broader agenda of poverty eradication and
sustainable development. "It is impossible to have a
fruitful discussion on how to improve our ecosystems without
addressing poverty," said Klaus Toepfer, executive
director of the United Nations Environment Programme, during
a brief coffee brake. "In 1992 most developed countries
pledged to donate 0.7 percent of their GNP, but only a few
did. So there is a need for re-commitment, a huge necessity
to re-establish the spirit of Rio."
Despite the criticism, many feel that environmental
issues have made some important strides since 1992. "I
feel that a lot has been achieved since the Earth
Summit," said Jan-Gustav Strandenaes, international
coordinator for the Norwegian forum for environment and
development, a national NGO. "We have conventions, such
as the one dealing with Biological Diversity and the one on
Climate Change that we didn’t have before, we have Agenda
21 with its programs of action to be undertaken by the
global community, we have unprecedented commitment from the
private sector. So if you put this in a historical
perspective you realize that, while a lot remains to be
done, a lot has been achieved in a relatively short period
of time."
Strandenaes, who participated in a dialogue session
between the ministers and civil society representatives, was
pleased at the opportunity to share his views with global
policy-makers. "It was the first time that such a
session was held in these informal ministerial meetings and
it was a very positive experience," he told The Earth
Times. "We came here to show that civil society can
make substantial contributions to the discussion and from
talking to individual ministers we know that some of the
suggestions we made during the dialogue session will be
carried into the Rio + 10 process."
Despite the disparities in the evaluation of
environmental achievements since the Earth Summit, there was
unanimous consent on the need to revitalize the agenda and
regain momentum. “I suggested that instead of reinventing
the wheel all over again at Rio + 10 we should focus on
three main issues from Agenda 21 which are equally important
to developed and developing countries,” Mohamed El-Ashry
told The Earth Times."Those issues are land and water,
deforestation and energy. Those topics, together with the
cross-sectional issues of poverty and financial support can
bring about some real achievements.”
Another area of agreement was the positive value of this
informal meeting. "This form was a good place for
reflection and for the assessment of our global
environmental strategy," said Jose Luis Samaniego Leyva,
coordinator of international affairs for Mexico’s
secretariat of environment, natural resources and fisheries.
“The exchange between ministers was very useful because we
were able to discuss our different perspectives without the
pressure of negotiations. This is a very important element,
because when we meet during a summit the positions are
already set in stone and there is little room or time to
reflect and have a dialogue free of political
pressures."
The most concrete discussion during the informal meeting
in Bergen centered on the institutional issues. "The
most concrete achievement of these three days was the
strengthening of UNEP," said Philippe Roch, state
secretary of the Swiss Agency for the environment, forests
and landscape to The Earth Times. "In the past, some
countries were interested in creating a new world
environment organization but during this meeting we all
agreed that UNEP should remain the main organization for
this purpose. The organization recently underwent extensive
internal reforms and thanks to the efforts of Klaus Toepfer,
its executive director, it has been able to gather
considerable political support. Clearly, UNEP still needs
more financial backing but I believe that it is important
that it remains the coordinating body on environment issues.
The ministers in this meeting seemed to agree that instead
of wasting time and energy in creating a new organization we
should find ways of strengthening this one."
Outside the meeting rooms in Bergen people in all nations
? rich and poor ? are experiencing the effects of ecosystem
decline in one guise or another: from water shortages in the
Punjab, India to soil erosion in Tuva, Russia and fish kills
off the coast of North Carolina in the United States.
Whether the discussions here and those at the conferences
on the environment that are soon to follow will be able to
stop the deterioration of our planet is still an open
question. At the very least, we can hope that the
participants at the Bergen meeting left Norway with a
renewed commitment to do something about it.
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By TAMAR HAHN