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A t the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio on June 3-14, also called the Earth Summit and Rio-92, leaders from the nations of the world met to discuss the interconnection of environment and development in terms of providing for “sustainable development”that is, trying to make sure that the world stays livable for all people. The world has witnessed some major changes since the Stockholm conference in 1972: the end of the war in Vietnam, the end of the Cold War,and the collapse of the Soviet Union. In another 20 years the world will change in ways inconceivable at the time of Rio-92. Rio-92 had successes, disappointments, and failures. It was a success in that 118 heads of state attended: representatives of 1 7 2 of the 178 United Nations were present; press registrations numbered more than 7000; and 17,000 representatives from 7156 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) came from 165 countries. (Rio-92 was accompanied by the biggest security operation in history; tanks and military units tightly controlled the city.) Never before have so many heads of state participated in a world even The runner-up occasion was the fi neral service for Emperor Hirohito, when 69 heads of state met in Japan. Two legally binding convention
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Prgcis articles are reports of meetings of unusual significance, international or notional developments of environmental importance, significant public policy developments, and related items.
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B Y STANTON S. MILLER
r 1 1710 Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 26, No.9, 1992
0013-936)(19210926-1710$03.00/0 0 1992 American Chemical Society
were drafted: a climate change convention and a biodiversity convention. However, the timetable and percentage reduction language for COXemissions were removed from the first convention. This change was said to be one of the conditions under which President Bush would, and subsequently did, attend the conference. But the 12-member European Community formally proclaimed its commitment to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. By making this commitment the EC is showing the way for the developing nations. The convention on biodiversity included language for the protection not only of flora and fauna but of the biotechnology industry and industrial rights. The United States signed the climate change convention but not the one on biodiversity. The U.N. conventions on climate change and biodiversity remain open for signature at U.N. headquarters in New York until June 19 and June 4, 1993, respectively. For either of these conventions to enter into force, it must be ratified, accepted, and approved or acceded to by national legislatures in at least 50 countries, a process that may take two years. In addition, the conference produced nonbinding agreements that include the Rio Declaration with its 27 principles for protection of the human species and definition of individual countries’ responsibility to the environment and their right to pursue economic development: and Agenda 21, the blueprint for sustainable development for the next century, comprising 115 projects at a cost of $125 billion. A few new agencies were set up, such as a U.N. Agency for Drug Control, a U.N. Commission for Sustainable Development, an international NGO, and the International Council on Environmental Education. The conference also issued a statement on principles for the preservation of the world’s forests.
the developing nations, the socalled G-77 that now represent 129 developing nations, approached Rio with open economic demands. “For them it is essentially a conference about development and justice,” President Fernando Collor de Mello of Brazil said. “We cannot have an environmentally healthy planet in a world of special injustice.”
At the beginning On the first day of the conference, Maurice Strong, secretary-general of the UNCED, said that we are all in this together. “No place on the planet can remain an island of affluence in a sea of misery,” he said. “We’re either going to save the whole world or no one will be saved. We must from here on all go down the same path.” Gro Harlem Brundtland, prime minister of Norway, declared that
I Some individual concerns There are many places in the world where poverty is a problem: there are places where environmental resources have been overused and others where resources have been depleted. For example, why would a tiny island in the Pacific be concerned with the global climate convention? Prime Minister Bikenbau Paneniu of the Pacific island
nation of Tuvalu said that the lives of Pacific Islanders will suffer the first wave of impacts from global climate change. The 36-square-mile island, only five feet above sea level, has 10,000 people and 1.3 million km of beaches. If the sea rises many of the beaches would disappear. The prime minister also said that his islanders have experienced other results of climate change recently, including strong winds and long dry periods. Failures Population growth is out of control: the refusal to discuss it was one of the failures of Rio-92. “The increase in population is largely in the developing world, where a quarter of a million people are added daily,” Maurice Strong warned. “We have been the most successful species ever: we are now a species out of control.’’ On June 9 at 1217 p.m. the number of Earth inhabitants was 5,466,540,323, according to a clock placed in RioCentro, the site for the Earth Summit: three people are added every second! Since the Stockholm Conference in 1972 the world population has grown by 1.7 billion, almost equal to the entire population living at the beginning of the 20th century. The number is increasing by 93 million people each year, straining resources and the environment. No one knows the carrying capacity of the world. But Gro Harlem Brundtland pointed out, “Although our technical and scientific advances have created a world economy of huge dimensions, there have never been so many poor, illiterate, and unemployed people in the world. One out of five people lives in abject poverty.” In some parts of the world the environmental resources have been overwhelmed. In his lecture to the press, world-renowned oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau cited the example of Haiti. “Seven and a half million people on an exiguous and impoverished land. They have exhausted the marine resources of their narrow continental shelf. They have deforested two thirds of their country, and tropical rains have thereafter wiped out the soil, laying bare the ground rock and impeding agriculture for centuries to come. We asked ‘What will you do when there is no wood left at all?’ ‘That will be the end of the world!’ they answered.” Cousteau warned, “Political changes will fail to resolve Haiti’s tragedy, as this country will Environ. sd.Technol., VoI. 26. NO. 9, 1992 1711
be poverty-stricken for many years, maybe forever, because in certain cases environmental destruction may reach a point of no return.’’ Cousteau’s second example of exhausted resources was Easter Island. He said, In the seventh century, as told by petroglyphs, two large outriggers landed on a virgin, lush, and uninhabited tropical island; two hundred Polynesians-men, women, and children-d pigs and hens landed on the beautiful beaches of Easter Island. They came from the Marquesas Islands, where they were ostracized and chased after a tribal war. For eight centuries, after they settled, they cultivated, multiplied, and developed a unique civilization. Their population increased wildly: they ran short of resources, and when their number reached 70,000, famine, bloody revolts, and social chaos brought about the total collapse of their society. When Dutch navigators landed at Easter Island in the 17th century,it was a barren, totally deforested piece of rock where a few hundred cannibals were hunting each other for survival. Easter Island’s natural exuberance had expired under the load of too many consumers. The warning is real. Cousteau said that the world population has more than tripled from 1.7 billion in 1910 to 5.4 billion today. If nothing drastic is done, in another 80 years the population will triple again, reaching the absurd figure of 16 billion. The oceanographer cautioned that every six months the equivalent of the population of France (50 million) is added, and that every 10 years there is a new China born in the poorest regions of Earth. He warned, let us face it: even if we found a way to feed this human tidal wave, it would be impossible to provide decent living conditions. “Surviving like rats is not what we should bequeath to our children and grandchildren.” Other places in the world have been damaged by human activity, such as Eastern Europe, the tropical rain forests, and notably the Aral Sea in the former Soviet Union. In 1960 the Aral Sea was the worlds fourth largest lake and an abundant source of fish: by 1991 it had lost 75% of its volume. The Soviet political system used the water that flowed into the Aral Sea to increase cotton production.
port, “Our Common Future,” by the World Commission on Environment and Development. The commission, chaired by Norway’s Brundtland, defined sustainable development as “the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”
WEARE ON A PATH OF CHANGE FROM WHICH WE CAN NEVER TURN BACK. IN ANOTHER 20 YEARS WHAT HAPPENS IN ANY ONE SMALL PART OF THE WORLD WILL AFFECT THE OTHERS.
Call for sustainability Sustainable development was one of the principal themes of Rio-92. It has been discussed since 1987 when it was first included in there1712 Envimn. Sci. Technol., Vol. 26, No. 9,1992
Although there is no universal definition of sustainable development, Strong appointed Stephan Schmidheiny, a leading Swiss industrialist, as principal advisor of a group of business and industry leaders to ensure that the world business community participated in the formulation of ideas and solutions at the Earth Summit. The group, called the Business Council for S u s t a i n a b l e D e v e l o p m e n t (BCSD),has issued a report entitled “Changing Course,” listing 38 case studies of sustainable business practices. The BCSD is a group Of 48 chief executive officers from every continent and a vast range of business and industrial sectors. The CEOs from the United States include Kenneth Derr of Chevron Corporation, Allen Jacobson of 3M, Frank Popoff of the Dow Chemical Company, Edgar Woolard of Du
Pont, and William Ruckelshaus of Browning Ferris Industries. The BCSD called for changes in management and business and, most important, in public opinion and policy. The report said, “there are no shortcuts to global sustainable development,” and highlighted the following two noteworthy processes for decisions, implementation, and enforcement: Political decisions with farreaching consequences should be made soon, and they will of necessity be based on incomplete scientific evidence and knowledge. The process of sustainable development will take different forms in different regions and cultures. Differing opinions will lead to different decisions based on the same set of facts. The BCSD coined the term “ecoefficiency” to describe those companies and nations that are able to add maximum value with minimum pollution. The process of change is imminent. Schmidheiny said, “Business must move beyond the traditional approach of back door lobbying; governments must move beyond traditional overreliance on command-and-control regulations. Technology must be moved from those who develop it and know how to train others to use it, to those who see a need for it and are committed to its effective use.” He also said, “I am not in any instance arguing for a ‘leave it to busiI do believe ness’ approach we have yet to define what business does best and what governments do best.” In Rio a framework was set up for a high-level U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development. This commission will be charged with overseeing implementation of Agenda 21 into the next century. However, this commission is perhaps not as strong as it could be: it will not have direct access to the General Assembly of the United Nations, but will report to the Economic and Security Council. Yet another reason for establishing this commission is to ensure that Rio-92 not be the end, but a beginning of change for the world.
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Funding The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) began as a three-year experiment run by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank. The
UNDP is responsible for technical assistance, the UNEP provides the secretariat for a Science and Technical Advisory Panel, and the World Bank administers the Facility. Mohammed T. El-Ashray is director of the Environment Departm e n t at t h e World Bank. All countries with a per capita income of less than $4000 per year (as of October 1989) and a UNDP program in place are eligible for GEF funds. The rule of thumb on allocation of GEF resources is that 40-50% goes for projects to reduce global warming, 30-40% to conserve biological diversity, and 10-20Y0 to protect international waters. Most ozone protection projects are funded by the Montreal Protocol’s Interim Multilateral Fund. According to a GEF brochure, the size of the GEF facility ($1.3 billion) reflects its experimental nature while providing enough resources to constitute a credible basis for action i n a significant number of countries. The pilot phase of the GEF ends in mid-1994, by which time all funds will be committed, although actual disbursements are likely to continue until 1998.
A glance at the future The Earth Summit may have been the last great chance for world leaders to make change. Some wonder if the U.N. is the vehicle for change. The past 160 international environmental agreements are the least adhered to of any U.N. agreements. When governments want to agree, the U.N. system works well, such as on the Persian Gulf War and the human rights declaration. The U.N. is the only place where all the governments of the world sit together. Certainly the world will not end, but change is mandatory. Rio-92 was the turning point in that environment and development were coupled for deliberation by world leaders. We are on a path of change from which we can never turn back. In another 20 years what happens in one small part of the world will affect the others. All agree to support environment and development, but the real question is, Who will ultimately pay the cost? Additional reading Official publications from UNCED are for sale by United Nations Publications in New York City; f a x (212)963-3489.
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