Kassas on the global environment At the symposium you mentioned that global agreements for the proiectlon of the environment are not being achieved. Could you elaborate? I do not yet see that the world is mature enough, is grown up enough, to be able to handle these problems and the handle them professionally. The whole world structure in politics and the like is not yet ready to face global problems. Let me give you a clear example, the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. . This international conference, with representatives of the world’s governments, has been sitting for more than three sessions. Each session they sit for a matter of 6-8 weeks to discuss, discuss, and discuss, and they cannot reach an agreement. The world recognizes that something must be done about the resources of the sea, including the environment of the oceans, but is not yet ready to do anything about it. The world is not yet ready to come to an agreement about the management of human, global. common resources. We cannot come to an agreement because our minds, our mentalities, are not yet ready to reach the types of compromisesandtypes of agreementsto go out of narrow national interest-to face global problems that relate to human resources. The Same situation prevails on problems of food, population, poverty, and underdevelopment.These are some of the problems that face the world today and may be threats to the future of the human race. What global agreements are In effect now? Global agreements will only be made under the harassing pressures of human survival. The one example of global agreement, although it is not actually written, is that there would be no international atomic war. The world reached this subtle agreement under obvious threat of eliminating the human race. Other dangers to the environment are not yet as clear as this example. The carbon dioxide problem, the ozone layer problem, as two other examples, are not
yet as clear a threat to the human race as atomic war. By the time we are able to persuade global agreement on these problems it would be too late to do anything about it. This is a real concern. UN CONFERENCES The United Nations as the world community of nations has sponsored conferences on habitat, food, among others. Why is it that the UN structure cannot cope with these problems? The United Nations system, the international machinery, poses a different problem. The UN machinery was organized to meet the problems of the world 25-30 years ago. Mainly it is organized along various scientific disciplines. We have special organizations for agriculture, meteorology, health, and the like. These disciplined organizations were very well suited to the problems of the world conceived 25-30 years ago. Within the past 2-5 years the world had
recognized different types of problems that are mostly multidisciplinary in nature. Every time the world recognizes a problem, the UN sets up a conference on the subject. There have been conferences on human environment, the law of the sea, food, women, desert, habitat, and water. All these problems are recognized by the world community and in the last 3-5 years the United Nations General Assembly in every case looked for a new forum to discuss these matters because the existing fora within the existing structure of the UN were not suitable to do so. UNEP SUCCESS STORY In your view, what is the value of the various conferences that have been held? One of the very early conferences that was very successful was the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in 1972 in Stockholm. The decision to hold that conference was made in 1968 and the preparatory pro-
Professor Mohamed Kassas, an Egyptian, is the assisant director general of ALESCO, the Arab League Educational Scientific and Culturat Organization. He is also vice-president of SCOPE, the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment. Organizedin 1968, SCOPE is one of many special commiffees of the tnternational Council of Scientific Unions. ICSU is fhe non-governmental scientific counferparl 01 the United Nations organization: i t represenfs fhe world’s expertise in the scientific community. At a recent meefing of SCOPE, on the occasion of the Mational Academy of Sciences’ (Washington, D.C.) bicentennial symposium, Kassas told ES&T’s Stan Miller about the scientific concern on the global problems of the environment. Volume 11, Number 1, January 1977
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Are you hopelul that an understanding among the scientific communities of the world can be reached on the ozone layer threat in the next few years? As part of the UNEP plans, there will be a meeting in the US. of international scientists on the problem in March. How active has SCOPE actually been on the environmental scene? What is Its track-record? SCOPE, one of a series of special committees of ICSU, by coincidence-or perhaps it was plannedorganized the same year (1968) that the UN decided to sponsor the Stockholm conference on the human environment. By that time, the world, within its governmental as well as its non-governmental structures, realized that the problems of the environment were among the problems urgently in need of attention. But one must remember that only five years earlier Rachael Carson produced "Silent Spring," which shocked the world about
cess started many years before the actual conference. It is the preparatory process that is most important. During 1969-1972, the secretariat of the conference managed to initiate and inspire worldwide interest in problems of the environment. In 1968, when the decision was made to hold the conference, interest on such problems was not there. The preparation, if it is well organized, could be just as useful as the conference itself. The Stockholm conference had a very successful preparatory process globalwide. It established not only the forum, but more importantly a machinery, UNEP-the United Nations Environment Program-and its Environment Fund, for operations.
to. It is true, the existing a UN-UNESCO, FAO, WHO March 1976, p 230)-alrr of them surely feels that to problems of today they ha little beyond their earlier prt of activity. With the multid ture of the environment, have spread so much that good deal of overlapping activities of the various i transitional areas of ove become even greater in re this is why we must look fr ically reorganize these age roots so that they have c objectives and limits of ac SCIENTIFIC INRC
Where is the mechanism to implement any actions resulting from the conlerences? The same has not happened from the other conferences. Basically, there has not been as much preparation and after the conference, there is no machinery to carry through with any recommendations. This true, of course, but in the meantime one cannot recommend that every UN conference should build a new machinery. The UN system would become too cumbersome and unmanageable. There needs to be some honest, in-depth look into the restructingof the UN. Several international studies have looked into the problem and how to make the UN better suited to cope with all global problems. Why is it not possible for the UNEP to take care of all the environmental problems, lrom population to habitat, since environment covers many of today's pressing problems? I think it is possible if the programs could be clearly planned, if the objective could be agreed 20
Environmental Science & Technology
One finds more problems e but not necessarily any 0 to solve even a lew of the find more problems becau needs are increasing. For ~.-, realize that a large portion of once-agricultural land in the subSahara is loosing its productivity. it's the process known as desertification. The UN is holding a conference next Fail on this worldwide problem. Desertification is caused by overpopulation, but some scientists are finding it is caused in certain cases by underpopuiation. Problems and interactions of the biosphere as entangled with the technosphere and the sociopoliticosphere have become the concern of environmental scientists. Another agricultural scientific problem is that the increased amounts of NO, in the world environment may be influencing the global ozone shield. Here, SCOPE is actively engaged in learning more about the role of NO, in the nitrogen biogeochemical cycle.
environment. In 1963, many people did not believe her. Only five years before the UN 1968 decision was taken to protect the environment, the whole world opinion was not ready to accede that the problems of the environment were urgent problems of the world. By 1968, the world opinion had changed. ICSU had decided to establish SCOPE and the UN had decided to establish the Stockholm conference. There was a very close link between SCOPE and the UN secretariat for the preparation of the UN conference. SCOPE contributedto the basic documents including the conception documents that went into the Stockholm conference. Even today, SCOPE maintains its close ties with the UNEP.
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