Forging a new global partnership to save the earth.

• Author: French, Hilary F.

An international effort must be made to stabilize the planet before environmental deterioration reaches a point that it becomes irreversible.

IN JUNE, 1992, more than 100 heads of state and 20,000 non-governmental representatives gathered in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). It resulted in the adoption of Agenda 21, an ambitious 500-page blueprint for sustainable development. In addition, Rio produced treaties on climate and biological diversity, both of which could lead to domestic policy changes in all nations. Significantly, the conference pointed to the need for a global partnership if sustainable development was to be achieved.

Since Rio, a steady stream of international meetings have been held on the many issues that were on its agenda. For instance, the September, 1994, International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo put the spotlight of world attention on the inexorable pace of population growth and the need to respond to it through broad-based efforts to expand access to family planning, improve women's health and literacy, and ensure child survival.

The pace of real change has not kept up with the increasingly loaded schedule of international gatherings, though. The initial burst of international momentum generated by UNCED is flagging, and the global partnership it called for is foundering due to a failure of political will. While a small, committed group of individuals in international organizations, national and local governments, and citizens' groups continues trying to keep the frame of Rio alive, business as usual largely is the order of the day in the factories, farms, villages, and cities that form the backbone of the world economy.

As a result, the relentless pace of global ecological decline shows no signs of letting up. Carbon dioxide concentrations are mounting in the atmosphere, species loss continues to accelerate, fisheries are collapsing, land degradation frustrates efforts to feed hungry people, and the Earth's forest cover keeps shrinking. Many of the development and economic issues that underpin environmental destruction are worsening. Income inequality is rising, Third World debt is mounting, human numbers continue growing at daunting rates, and the amount of poor people in the world is increasing.

The global partnership that is needed to reverse these trends will have several distinct features. It will involve a new form of relationship between the industrialized North and the developing South. Another feature will be a division of responsibility among different levels of governance worldwide. Problems are solved best at the most decentralized level of governance that is consistent with efficient performance of the task. As they transcend boundaries, decision-making can be passed upward as necessary--from the community to the state, national, regional, and, in some rare instances, global level. A third requirement is the active participation of citizens in village, municipal, and national political life, as well as at the United Nations.

Above all, the new partnership calls for an unprecedented degree of international cooperation and coordination. The complex web of ecological, economic, communication, and other connections binding the world together means that no government can build a secure future for its citizens by acting alone.

Protecting the global environment

One of the primary ways the world community has responded to the environmental challenge is through the negotiation of treaties and other types of international accords. Nations have agreed on more than 170 ecological treaties--more than two-thirds of them since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. In 1994, the climate and biological diversity conventions as well as the long-languishing Law of the Sea treaty received enough ratifications to enter into force. In addition, governments signed a new accord on desertification and land degradation.

These agreements have led to some measurable gains. Air pollution in Europe has been reduced dramatically as a result of the 1979 treaty on transboundary air pollution. Global chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions have dropped 60% from their peak in 1988 following the 1987 treaty on ozone depletion and its subsequent amendments. The killing of elephants has plummeted in Africa because of the 1990 ban on commercial trade in ivory under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna. Mining exploration and development have been forbidden in Antarctica for 50 years under a 1991 accord.

The hallmark of international environment governance to date is the Montreal Protocol on the Depletion of the Ozone Layer. First agreed to in September, 1987, and strengthened significantly twice since then, it stipulates that the production of CFCs in industrial countries must be phased out altogether by 1996. It also restricts the use of several other ozone-depleting chemicals, including halons, carbon tetrachlorides, methyl chloroform, and hydrochlorofluorocarbons. Developing countries have a 10-year grace period in which to meet the terms of the original protocol and its amendments.

While this is a momentous international achievement, the world will have paid a heavy price for earlier inaction. Dangerous levels of ultraviolet radiation will be reaching the Earth for decades to come, stunting agricultural productivity and damaging ecological and human health.

The lessons learned in the ozone treaty are being put to a severe test as the international community begins to confront a more daunting atmospheric challenge--the need to head off climate change. Less than two years after it was signed in Rio, the Framework Convention on Climate Change became international law in March, 1994, when the 50th country (Portugal) ratified it. The speed with which the treaty was ratified was in part a reflection of the fact that it contains few real commitments.

The pact's deliberately ambiguous language urges, but does not require, industrial nations to stabilize emissions of carbon--the primary contributor to global warming--at 1990 levels by the year 2000. Developing nations face no numerical goals whatsoever, though all signatories must conduct inventories of their emissions, submit detailed reports of actions taken to implement the convention, and take climate change into account in all their social, economic, and environmental policies. No specific policy measures are required, however.

As of late 1994, most industrial countries had established national greenhouse gas targets and climate plans, but they vary widely in effectiveness. Among the most ambitious and comprehensive are those of Denmark, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, none of which have powerful oil or coal...