Environmental News EU sustainable development rules Establishing a federal sustainability council within the European Union (EU) is key to closing the widening gap between sustainable development and the reality of EU politics, finds a report by the European Consultative Forum for Environment and Sustainable Development. The forum was set up by the European Commission (EC) to offer advice on policy development and provide a bridge to different sectors of European society. A sustainable development strategy has been in the works since 1997 when the concept was introduced into the EU constitution and defined as an overall EU target, says Philipp Schepelmann, senior researcher at the Wuppertal Institute in Germany and one of the report's authors. As a result, the various government sectors—including agriculture, industry, energy, transport, and finance—are developing strategies for integrating sustainable develop-
ment into their policies, proving that environmental considerations have been taken into account and defining timetables and indicators. Sectors are now becoming aware that sustainable development will not happen unless they change their policies, and this is a "huge step", Schepelmann says. For example, the transport sector now acknowledges that Europe will not meet its requirements under the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change if transport density continues to increase. True sustainable development will require the more difficult step of connecting all these different sectoral strategies into an intricate web, however, says Uno Svedin, forum chairman. To help, the forum suggests a linkage between governance and sustainability. A sustainability council could oversee this integration. Likewise, the forum strongly recommends a more influential role for the public and
nongovernmental organizations, particularly environmental groups, as well as more transparency in rulemaking. The EC is expected to introduce a sustainable development strategy in July 2001. And although there will be a considerable time lag before the strategy begins to affect EU policy, progress on this issue has been considerable compared to efforts in the United States, Schepelmann notes. Crescencia Maurer, of the World Resources Institute in Washington, DC, but points out that the United States has approached the issue in a much different way. "It's not just government-led," she says, but rather is a multistakeholder process with initiatives on the local and state levels being worked out with society and business groups. The forum report can be accessed at http://europa.eu.int/comm/ environment/forum/govemance_en. pdf. —KRIS CHRISTEN
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4 5 8 A • NOVEMBER 1, 2000 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS
