OEGD-EEC adopt environmental objectives The state of the global environment came in for its periodic review recently by the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development in Paris. There, environmental ministers from the 24 OECD member countries, together with their counterparts from the European Economic Community as a collective body and from Yugoslavia, held a threeday meeting in June, the third such gathering since 1974. Huguette Bouchardeau, France's Minister of the Environment, who chaired the meeting, acknowledges, "We can't impose rules or regulations on one another in the same way that [EEC] can adopt regulations that become law throughout its member countries." On the other hand, through OECD, "We are making decisions as to what kind of [environmental] objectives we wish to attain," she asserts. Inevitably, key issues of international concern like acid rain, hazardous waste shipments, and explosions at chemical plants such as have occurred at Bhopal, India, and Seveso, Italy, were among the topics of discussion. But other dimensions of the environmental pollution problem came in for review: typically, the question of excessive noise; contamination of water courses by nitrates and other chemicals used by the farming community; and effects stemming from transfer of technology to developing countries. "The number of new substances used in industry and farming has proliferated," Bouchardeau points out. "We must seek ways of controlling them. But there has been a change of viewpoint in the past five years or so. Not only are we concerned with individual substances, but with their combinations in the soil, water, and air. This doesn't mean, however, that we are regarding the chemical industry as the one to be addressed first and foremost." Referring to OECD's recent report, "The State of the Environment 1985" (C&EN, June 17, page 7), which formed the basis of the Paris discussions, Lee M. Thomas, Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, says: "In the five years since the last ministerial meet-
ing, our countries have made solid progress in controlling and abating many environmental pollutants." As examples, he sites the reduction in air and water pollution "despite increases in population and growth in our economies," improvement in municipal waste management, stabilization of the environmental levels of certain persistent chemicals and pesticides, and protection of natural areas by designating them national parks and preserves. Far from being complacent, Thomas stresses that "much remains to be done. We now face a new generation of environmental concerns, such as the risks of toxic chemicals to human health and the environment, management of hazardous waste, acid deposition, and interaction of pollutants on air, water, and soil. "These are complex to identify, analyze, and act upon," Thomas says. "They frequently bring economic burdens either in solving them or leaving them unsolved. They call for integrated analytical techniques, innovative management tools, indeed a fresh and creative approach. To meet these concerns, we must move to the next plateau of environmental controls." The Paris deliberations led to adoption of a 14-point declaration
Bouchardeau: a change of viewpoint
titled "Environment, Resource for the Future." To some, this may appear to reiterate the obvious. But it does commit the participating governments to a number of key environmental objectives. They pledge, for example, to: • Achieve through national policies and international cooperation early effective reductions of emissions of major air pollutants from stationary and mobile sources to achieve environmentally acceptable air quality and acid deposition levels. • Support efforts to introduce less-polluting motor vehicles, and secure an adequate supply of leadfree gasoline in all OECD member countries. • Achieve through shared and coordinated efforts more effective control of both new and existing chemicals, from their manufacture to their ultimate disposal. • Strengthen control over generation and disposal of hazardous wastes, and establish an effective and legally binding system for control of their transfrontier movements, including movements to nonmember countries. • Ensure measures to control potentially hazardous installations including measures to prevent accidents. • Strengthen efforts to contribute to environmentally sound development in developing countries. • Exchange and publish internationally comparable data on environmental conditions, and provide better and more-timely information for the public. Also adopted was a resolution on international cooperation concerning transfrontier movements of hazardous wastes. According to OECD, there are some 100,000 border crossings annually of such material. In addition, three formal recommendations were put forward. One involves control of air pollution from fossil fuel combustion. Another deals with environmentally favorable energy options and their implementation. The third provides a framework for the environmental assessment of projects and programs being considered by Third World countries. Dermot O'Sullivan, London July 8, 1985 C&EN
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