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German Advisory Council on Global Change - WBGU |
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Pressure to take action is unabated / Initial successes / Strengthen
the Rio follow-up process by institutional means / German involvement
praiseworthy / Germany's financial contribution is inadequate
/ Examine new instruments for supporting the developing nations
/ More participatory rights for non-governmental organizations
/ Promote local initiatives
June 1997. In the view of the German
Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), the current crisis in
domestic politics must not be allowed to detract from global problems
in the fields of environment and development. The fact that local
difficulties are mostly related to the problems of global change
implies that joint activities are the only way to accomplish national
and global tasks. On the occasion of the Special Session of the
UN General Assembly in New York from June 23 to June 27,
five years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the Council
emphasises that, for all the progress achieved, the pressure to
take action continues unabated, and in some respects has even
increased. The activities decided upon in Rio must therefore be
continued with great intensity and with the requisite financial
support. Germany has special obligations and responsibilities
in this context. As one of the greatest causal agents of global
environmental problems and as one of the most powerful industrial
nations in the world, Germany should display a special commitment
in the field of global environmental policy.
In the view of the WBGU, international
partnership must be greatly enhanced in order to lend support
to the process commenced at the Rio conference. Wherever conventions,
protocols, declarations and action plans are required, efforts
should be made to integrate them appropriately into existing institutions
to avoid any duplication of effort. The importance of coordinating
and enhancing existing facilities is mounting as international
cooperation grows. In addition to the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), there are two other UN institutions sharing
the main onus of work in the follow-up to Rio: While the United
Nations Environmental Programme(UNEP) reports on developments
and achievements and is primarly engaged in providing technical
assistance for setting up environmental facilities and environmental
information systems, the Commission for Sustainable Development
(CSD) established to monitor, assess and continue the process
started in Rio has become a central forum for environmental and
development issues at the global level. Although specific initiatives
launched by the CSD have achieved successes, it has yet to emerge
as the driving force essential to continue and accelerate the
Rio process. Another problematic aspect is that both institutions
are expected, independently of one another, to coordinate implementation
of AGENDA 21. Moreover, UNEP and CSD are accountable to the Economic
and Social Council of the United Nations (ECOSOC), a relatively
weak institution. The WBGU considers it essential that the international
community examine options for establishing an effective "Organisation
for Sustainable Development" as a key agency with the UN
system, endowed with a comprehensive range of competencies to
implement AGENDA 21.
Since 1992, the German Federal Government
has implemented a number of measures for implementing the resolutions
adopted in Rio. As well as establishing the WBGU as an expert
panel providing advice to policymakers, Germany has meanwhile
been chosen as the venue for the Secretariat of the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change, and has applied to be the location
of the Secretariat of the Desertification Convention. In addition,
Germany has been actively involved in ongoing negotiations on
the conventions already in place, and has lent intensive support
to the various World Summits of recent years in the form of national
reports. Germany is involved at local and international level
in some of the follow-up processes, such as the United Nations
Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) and the Desertification
Convention.
The Council takes a critical view of
Germany's financial contribution to the implementation of AGENDA
21, which is too small in relation to its economic strength. AGENDA
21 assesses that implementation in the developing countries alone
will cost an additional US$ 600 billion annually, of which
the international community should provide 125 billion. Given
Germany's percentage contribution to the United Nations of 8.92%
for 1993 (9.5% in 1995), the country should be providing US$ 11.16
billion of this annual requirement in addition to its official
development aid. Taking the German gross national product for
1993 - the first year of the AGENDA 21 planning frame -
this would correspond to about 0.58% of German GNP. Since economic
cooperation with the developing countries involves more than the
pure costs for the Rio follow-up, the resultant obligation is
well in excess of the 0.7% target. By way of comparison, Germany's
current expenditure on development cooperation is a mere 0.32%
of GDP (1996 figures).
Developing countries are unable to surmount the problems created by global change unless they receive external assistance. Much experience has been gained in the meantime with financial mechanisms and instruments such as the Global Environment Facility (GEF) of the World Bank or the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol. A more recent instrument in the field of climate protection concerns activities jointly implemented by several partner countries in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (joint implementation); this could be developed into an international system of tradeable emission certificates.
The debt crisis faced by many developing
countries effectively blocks any expenditure on environment and
development, a fact that has led to intensified debate on so-called
"debt-for-nature swaps" at the World Summits of recent
years. This mechanism involves buying up a developing country's
foreign debts on the market for executory titles, often far below
their nominal value, and transferring these titles to the country
in question, in return for which the recipient invests the funds
thus acquired in specific environmental projects, in food security
measures, social security measures or in housing projects. In
addition to direct funding of environmental and development projects
using various support instruments, it is imperative that these
cross-cutting operations be integrated more than hitherto in the
work of the "traditional" funding instruments, such
as the World Bank's. Steps must now be taken to identify which
instruments are particularly appropriate in specific cases.
In managing the problems of global change,
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) active in the fields of
environment and development have assumed an increasingly important
role. As "trustees of the environment and the poor",
these NGOs exert considerable influence on diplomatic negotiations;
in Germany, they are also important players in the implementation
of AGENDA 21. The Rio conference was the first to empower NGOs
as participants at intergovernmental conferences, as reflected
in the enhancement of their rights in respect of access to information
and involvement as parties. The WBGU recommends that ways be examined
for further enhancing the participatory rights of environmental
and development organizations within the UN system.
For all the current endeavors and intergovernmental
approaches for combating global problems, one must not forget
that the environmental and development crisis afflicting the world
as a whole cannot be solved unless changes are effected in the
behavior of people and organizations. A decisive factor in this
context is played by education geared to practical activity and
by increasing people's awareness of global problems. To achieve
these goals, it is essential to promote both local initiatives
within the framework of Local AGENDA 21 as well as the global
networking of such initiatives. The WBGU recommends that policies
applied so far to promote environmental and development organizations
in Germany and in developing countries be retained or strengthened.
For the scientists on the Council, the term "global change" refers to trends that irreversibly change the internal workings of the Earth System and which therefore have a noticeable impact on the natural resource basis of a large part of the Earth's population. These trends include climate change, the loss of fertile soils, declining biodiversity, freshwater scarcity, overexploitation of the world ocean, the increase in (human-induced) natural disasters, population growth, increasing migration, urbanization, threats to world food security and human health, and the widening welfare gap between industrialized and developing countries.
The WBGU was established by the Federal
Government in early 1992 as an independent advisory council. The
background to this move was the growing concern for preserving
the natural resource basis on which humankind's life and social
development depends, and the recognition that international action
is needed more and more urgently. The Council produces Annual
Reports describing global environmental trends and the problems
these generate for human societies. The reports give special consideration
to the international agreements and the Agenda for the 21st century
dealt with at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. They also
make specific recommendations relating to research programs and
to action in the field of environmental policy. The following
reports have appeared so far in the "World in Transition"
series: Basic Structure of People-Environment Relations (1993),
The Threat to Soils (1994), Ways Towards Global Environmental
Solutions (1995) and The Research Challenge (1996).
The Council Members are: Prof. Dr. F.
Beese, Göttingen (agronomist), Prof. Dr. K. Fraedrich, Hamburg
(meteorologist), Prof. Dr. P. Klemmer, Essen (economist), Prof.
Dr. Dr. J. Kokott, D¸sseldorf (specialist in international
law), Prof. Dr. L. Kruse-Graumann, Hagen (psychologist), Prof.
Dr. O. Renn, Stuttgart (sociologist), Prof. Dr. H.-J. Schellnhuber,
Potsdam (physicist), Prof. Dr. E.-D. Schulze, Bayreuth (botanist),
Prof. Dr. M. Tilzer, Bremerhaven (limnologist), Prof. Dr. P. Velsinger,
Dortmund (economist) and Prof. Dr. H. Zimmermann, Marburg (economist).
The Managing Director of the Council Secretariat is Prof. Dr.
M. Schulz-Baldes, Bremerhaven (marine biologist).
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