By Pavel P. Antonov Illustration: Laszlo Falvay HEADS OR TALES: The environment needs money, but money does not need environment. Do you know Bjorn Lomborg? With his athletic physique, shiny blond hair and charming smile he could be the twin of Dieter Bohlen - the front man of the popular disco band Modern Talking. But Lomborg's renown stems from his authorship two years ago of The Skeptical Environmentalist. He claims that the environment is safe and sound, with no need to care for it. The warnings about depleted natural resources and global warming are false alarms raised by self-serving environmentalists to blackmail governments and businesses, Lomborg wrote. Denmark's academic ethics panel concluded that the book promulgates false science and betrays a "systematic one-sidedness. " But the media seems to love Lomborg. After touring the Western world for awhile, in June he came to Budapest to give Central and Eastern Europe his version of modern talking. Lomborg comes at a moment when governments, international organisations, civil society and businesses are working hard to balance development with environmental decline, poverty and sickness. In May representatives of these groups met in Kiev to look at Europe and draw plans for its future. Today Europe's environment seems to be doing well indeed. According to the European Environment Agency (EEA)the 1990s were a boon to nature. Greenhouse emissions on the European continent fell by 3.5 percent by 2000. Ozone depleting releases dropped by 90 percent. Organic pollution in rivers and lakes has generally decreased. But unlike disco hits and Lomborg's book, the EEA's report was not uniformly positive. Industry in Central and Eastern Europe is from seven to three times more energy intensive than in the West. The use of pesticides in agriculture is still widespread. Unsustainable transport and agriculture practices are quickly spreading to the east of the continent. After a decade of economic restructuring and diminished production, industry is back on its feet. One of the challenges for the region today is to decouple economic growth and environmental destruction. But weak laws and enforcement here encourage environmentally questionable businesses which face public opposition elsewhere in Europe. Lomborg is right about one thing - that such challenges require money and thought about priorities. During the past decade, CEE countries explored a handful of environmental financing techniques with different levels of success. EU accession will require this region to conform to EU financing rules and mechanisms. But economists warn that the EU itself needs to revisit its own poorly conceived regulations which hinder effective financing. The ministers in Kiev prioritised the transfer of knowledge to Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. They signed three protocols guaranteeing the public's right to know about environmental threats and participate in environmental decisions. They set a goal to safeguard biodiversity by 2010. Yet ministers didn't bring up some of the most divisive issues, such as nuclear power and GMOs. Some saw this as a signal that the Environment for Europe process needs work. Kiev identified education as an urgent priority. As it happens, the REC has already formed partnerships with the business sector to improve education about sustainability. Because the sooner everyone understands the environment's value, the sooner they will give up habits of over-consumption. That is where sustainability begins.

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