4.3 Annex 3. TOWARDS 2002 - NEW CHALLENGES FOR EUROPE AND THE WORLD
Presentation made by Chris Church, ANPED, plenary, 14 September 2000 and Rio+10 Workshop, 15 September 2000
In 1992 the UN Earth Summit put sustainable development on the political agenda, and called for the linking of policies on environmental, economic and social issues. Eight years on it is clear that much of the action in this field has involved economic and environmental priorities, but that there has been little attempt to develop policies that link environmental work with key social issues such as poverty, health, and human rights.
Poverty continues to be the largest single cause of early death on the planet and simple health measures of proven effectiveness continue to lack funds for implementation. At the same time environmental problems is a direct cause of poverty for millions and poor environmental quality is causing health problems everywhere. The focus on economics and environment has opened up new debates, but many NGOs now question how far this has led to actual change and to fair and sustainable development.
In 2002 world leaders will gather for Earth Summit 2002, ten years on from Rio. In Europe there will also be the next major Environment for Europe (EfE) ministerial conference in Kiev. If these events are to have value and to lead to real global change both events, and especially the Earth Summit, need to directly address the links between the social and environmental issues and to do so in the context of justice and human rights.
Environmental rights and environmental justice
As a starting point we should recognise now that it is quite within our means to deliver basic environmental rights to every person on earth - with an adequate supply of clean water and food and decent shelter being core components of those rights. Food and shelter issues may not be seen by some purely "environmental" groups as key issues, but it is very short-sighted for any group to imagine that we can achieve any form of sustainable planetary environment if we do not face up to these issues.
We also need to recognise that continuing damage to the environment is causing most harms to the poorest peoples of the world, yet the damage is overwhelmingly being caused by the world's rich. Global climate change is just one example of this phenomenon, but other include the overuse of water and other renewable resources such as fish stocks. The disproportionate impact of environmental destruction on the world's poor has rightly been described as "Environmental Injustice", and the search for environmental justice should be at the core of our work as we move towards 2002.
We should not set our sights too high for 2002. Indeed we should perhaps set them deliberately low, identifying tasks that we know are feasible, and which no government should be able to avoid delivering, assuming the international support is available. Such bottom line tasks would also act as the building blocks for more ambitious programmes.
A programme based on delivering basic human rights, rights that have been agreed repeatedly on paper by governments over the last fifty years, may seem a very small step. But such a programme will face a range of serious challenges: challenges, which NGOs also need to face up to.
North, South, East, West
Perhaps the biggest change since preparations started for the 1992 Earth Summit has been the emergence of the new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS nations. With this change have come new common development problems, problems that are in many cases quite different to those faced by nations in the South or the rich West. These include a deteriorating infrastructure, pollution caused by obsolete and under financed heavy industry, a developing housing crisis, and a lack of effective governance and a strong civil society.
These problems have been compounded by economic distortion. Profitable businesses have received Inward investment, only to lose most of their profits as they flow out of these nations back to the western investors. Talk of introducing new technologies to enable these nations to leap forward has been replaced by a reality of the dumping of obsolete technologies.
With these issues in mind it is no longer appropriate to talk about "North-South" relationships. The "East" has its own problems and priorities. Any agreements made at the EfE 2002 conference in Kiev or at the Earth Summit need to reflect these problems. Solving those problems must involve the development of a stronger civil society.
The EfE process has already made a great potential contribution to this process with the agreement in 1998 of the "Aarhus Convention" - the European Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice. The emphasis of this agreement on rights to participation and justice could help build the basis of a campaign for a rights-based approach to environmental action and sustainable development.
Yet the failure of many nations to take this Convention seriously is threatening its' success. Many governments have not ratified the convention, while some of those who have done so have clearly done so in a cynical manner, hoping for external support as a result, while making no serious moves to implement it.
Tackling the implementation crisis
The failure to take forward the Aarhus Convention is just one example of a wider failure by governments to implement international agreements. The most glaring example is the possibility that the USA may fail to meet its' most basic responsibilities with regard to global warming and thus bring about a collapse of the whole Kyoto process, but there are many others, ranging from G8 summit agreements on debt relief and poverty to basic European agreements on environmental quality.
These failures should worry NGOs for several reasons. Firstly this government inadequacy undermines all the international processes, and raises questions about the value of participation in those processes. More worryingly it contributes to destroying public concern by creating a culture of hopelessness, where there is no point in voting because governments achieve nothing. This is not the case, as any view of recent history will show. There have been a range of international agreements such as the Montreal protocol or the international ban on whaling that have had very clear benefits for the global environment, while national and local action plans have helped improve quality of life within many nations.
But the lack of effective measures to support or even enforce implementation is leading to a situation where governments, of both poor and rich nations, can sign up to any agreement and be seen to be playing their part on paper, while in reality doing little or nothing to change matters. NGOs have become increasingly good at helping develop international agreements: the challenge now is to follow those agreements through. Before 2002 we need a comprehensive and objective review of how far all the international agreements made at and since Rio have actually been moved forward.
This may prove to be depressing reading, but as NGOs planning to put new ideas on the agendas for both the Kiev conference and for Earth Summit 2002, then we need to be sure that there is some chance to agreements, if made, will be adhered to. Implementation of agreements already made should be a key priority.
Central to that implementation will be the need to build stronger national and local level campaigns. If we are to convince governments do more than talk, then we need concerted action at every level and ideally in every city. Some national groups have suggested that local action is marginal, and is primarily about local problems. Yet it is clear that many governments in both East and West Europe feel that they can avoid taking action on 'difficult' issues since they claim to see little evidence of support for strong environmental policies from the wider public.
A new approach to local action
If NGOs are to make their mark in 2002, we need to put time and effort now into building our grass roots support. To do that we need to build much stronger support from the public, from local government, and from NGOs in the health and social sectors that may see environmental concern as marginal to their work.
To build that support we need to show how international agreements, whether they be the Aarhus Convention, the Water Protocol or the Global Climate negotiations, can and will improve local quality of life. We need to help NGOs make sense of these agreements and to start work on making them work locally. We have already seen emerging good practice on 'localising' the Aarhus Convention. We should now seek to make this good practice common practice.
This work should not be done in isolation. We need strong local plans and actions as well, in order to tackle specific local problems. Whether these are LEHAPs (Local Environment and Health Action Plans), Local Agenda 21, or simply some form of community action plans, these can lay the foundations for long-term change. But we should increasingly seek to link this local work to the international agenda.
Local Action in a Globalising World
The other major change since the Rio Summit has been the rapid growth in economic globalisation. This has been vigorously opposed by many different NGOs, for many different reasons and in very different ways. Some favour confrontation, others are looking to control multi-nationals through voluntary agreements and legislation, and others are seeking to develop ‘localisation’ as an alternative. It should be obvious that all these approaches are needed, and it is also clear that the third of these approaches ‘localisation’ is the least clearly thought through.
Such a process is presented by some anti-globalisation campaigners as being purely about strengthening local economies, about protecting those economies, and about developing new green initiatives. But this crucially ignores the issues relating to local governance, the development of civil society, and the ways in which local organisations can have an impact at national and global levels. A situation where the globalising economy tolerates and even encourages local green initiatives may give an illusion of localisation, but is not any kind of sustainable solution if those local initiatives have no political power.
Localism and nationalism
There is a further problem. The new focus on the local may encourage those who feel alienated from the global but it may also encourage those who feel hostile to those around them. The recent and current wars and secessionist struggles in Europe and other parts of the NIS show how strong and how dangerous nationalist rhetoric can be when there is a lack of strong political leadership. In addition some anti-globalisation campaigners have been involved in discussion with extreme right-wing parties, giving some credence to the idea that the only alternative to globalisation is rampant nationalism.
There is clearly a case to answer. Some years ago Susan George, a long-term campaigner on transitional issues, suggested that the best defence against multi-national take over of the global economy was strong democratic governments. This is probably very true (in the absence of other structures with sufficient power) but flirting with nationalism is not the way forward, not is it a way to strengthen democracy. It is perhaps also worth noting that the upsurge in nationalism and xenophobia reported in parts of Europe is in areas with depressed economies, but also in areas suffering serious environmental damage.
There is an urgent need to strengthen ideas around Localism and Localisation, and to accept that strong local action must be developed within a global and internationalist perspective. We can certainly stand up alongside local campaigners who oppose new developments and say "not in my back yard!", but we need to show such groups that there is a ´big front yard’ as well, and that they need to be concerned with global issues.
This is a difficult task. It will also mean that anti-globalisation campaigners need to get to grips with local democratic structures, to recognise that developing links with those structures will take time and effort, and to accept that localisation will be a long and difficult process with no easy answers. One of the myths of the new localism is that decisions should be taken as locally as possible. This may in fact be a recipe for handing over power to multi-nationals: strategic decisions affect a whole country or region need decision made at that level, although of course local communities need a say in that decision-making. New forms of effective democracy are just one challenge.
Towards a work programme
All these overlapping issues are confusing and can seem overwhelming. A first step in any work in this field will be to start building the capacity of smaller organisations to get to grips with these issues.
For ANPED we need to identify some clear aims, and then look at how those aims can be delivered through our work programmes, and where those work programmes might start. The overall aims might be:
This seems to break down into early work on:
Immediate steps are: