S O F I A R E P O R T
For perhaps the first time, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were asked to join government officials and business executives in Sofia for an international ministerial conference to try and solve some of Europe's most pressing environmental problems. But an apparent misunderstanding in the last plenary session almost undermined one of the Sofia "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference's most impressive achievements: public participation.
During the session, devoted to critiquing and adopting the Ministerial Declaration, John Hontelez, chairman of Friends of the Earth International and a key figure in the Environmental NGO Coalition that took part in the conference, waved the coalition's placard for what seemed like hours.
"Yes," said the chair of the session, Bulgaria's Deputy Prime Minister Rumen Gechev, acknowledging his right to speak on behalf of Europe's NGOs, "I see you back there. I'm just letting the ministerial delegations speak first. You will have your chance after the coffee break."
But coffee and cookies came and went, other delegations had their say, and Hontelez continued to hold his NGO banner high, often times resting it on the top of his head to give his arm a break. "If there are no other comments," Gechev continued after a few more delegates had given their comments, "then we'll go ahead and adopt the declaration. We're even ahead of schedule."
Hontelez sprinted up the sidelines, plunked himself down beside Gechev, and whispered into his ear. Why aren't you allowing us to speak, Hontelez must have said. We have a right to speak. Hontelez only stayed for a moment, and then hurried back to join his colleagues who were buzzing around their desk.
"My apologies," said Gechev to the rebelling NGO representatives. "Please go ahead."
Hontelez then launched into a short, tactful speech that, ironically, applauded the increased transparency of the Sofia conference and the inclusion of NGOs. He also welcomed the Environmental Program for Europe (EPE) and the Environmental Action Program (EAP) that received so much support at the Sofia conference. The prospect for the development of a convention on public participation, an issue that the Dane's have said will be a high priority at the next conference in Copenhagen, was also given high kudos. Of course, he was critical of the CO2 tax that never was and the nuclear issue that was almost overlooked, but almost everybody had voiced displeasure over one issue or another.
Then Hontelez handed the mike over to Amadeus Krastev, leader of a Bulgarian NGO chosen by his peers to represent them at the final session. When he began to speak, the microphone went dead. For a moment, the airy hall stood silent.
The Environmental NGO Coalition's desk erupted with activity as Gechev attempted to give the closing address amidst a growing, undeniable murmur. They were standing now, a half dozen of them or more, crowded behind the Environmental NGO Coalition table, waving whatever they could find - paper, signs, arms - to get the room's attention.
Finally, Hontelez broke in: "Mr. Chairman, we weren't quite finished. My colleague wanted to speak on behalf of the Bulgarian NGOs." The room buzzed with the hum of a thousand bees as Gechev decided what to say.
"Go ahead," said Gechev.
Krastev spoke of Kozluduy, Bulgaria's recently reopened and increasingly unsafe nuclear reactor, and then said what everyone else in the room was thinking: These arguments should have been made before the Ministerial Declaration was adopted so you could have had them in mind.
"Thank you very much," said Gechev. And the conference was over.
Why Gechev tried to ignore the NGOs during the final plenary is unclear. Oversight? Maybe. Whatever the reason, it seemed a strange way to end an international conference that was marked, above all else, by the fact that nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were allowed not only to attend, but to participate in the proceedings.
NGO representatives had been involved in the preparatory stages of the Sofia conference almost from the very beginning. They attended meetings of the UN ECE Working Group of Senior Government Officials, where they helped hammer out the details of the strategies, programs and guidelines that were endorsed, supported and acknowledged at the conference.
After the final press conferences had been packed away, Hontelez reflected on the role NGOs played in the "Environment for Europe" (EfE) process: "Though it is far from perfect, the EfE is the only process on which we can get together as a united Europe. And with only a couple of exceptions, we are quite satisfied with the UN ECE and their efforts to involve us in the process."
The Sofia conference was structured around five plenary sessions on four different topics , but the discussion always gravitated toward a single issue: money. The Environmental Action Program for Central and Eastern Europe, adopted at the last "Environment for Europe" conference in Lucerne, dominated the first day. Government officials agreed that CEE countries had made good progress both in implementing the EAP and developing National Environmental Action Plans (NEAPs), environmental strategies based on policy reform, institution strengthening and priority setting. The implementation question, however, inevitably turned to financing: Once NEAPs had been developed, and the requisite priorities set, who was going to pay for the projects that would improve the health of the environment? The answer was close to home.
"It is necessary now to create financing mechanisms that focus on developing local funding capacity," said Bill Nitze, head of the US delegation, in a post-plenary press conference.
Although Western governments and international financing institutions (IFIs) have been supplying grants and loans that help solve priority problems identified in NEAPs, the lion's share of environmental financing still comes from national budgets. In Poland, for example, 41 percent of 1994 environmental expenditures came from domestic environmental funds, 31 percent from industry and 4 percent from other sources, according to a speech made by Bernard Blaszczyk, Poland's deputy minister of environment. But CEE governments cannot hope to finance the huge price tag on environmental protection themselves, so the message at Sofia was clear: CEE governments must recruit investors, industry and, increasingly, consumers to help cover the costs (see Financing environmental protection).
The second day opened with a look at the crucial relationship between business, industry and the environment. "The role of business is to bring leadership, to be proactive in the field of the environment," said Percy Barnevik, president and CEO of Asea Brown Boveri, a global trans- portation and electricity giant that prides itself on being a world leader in environmentally friendly technologies. Much of the focus in this plenary was on the need for environmental management training. "You must spend as much money on training as you do on technical products and capital investment," said Barnevik.
But again, the discussion seemed to pull toward the issue of financing like a magnet. Ismail Serageldin, vice-president for environmentally sustainable development at the World Bank, provided sound advice for those involved in financing environmental protection. Enterprises, he said, should focus on those environmental investments that can be financed out of cash flow; governments, said Serageldin, should prioritize their problems and set up internal (market-based) incentives such as pollution taxes and product charges; he then encouraged external donors to avoid soft loans to enterprises and invest in projects only as a reward for better management, not as an incentive to bring it about.
These views are reflected to a large degree in the Ministerial Declaration, which "encourages" and "welcomes" increased financial resources from virtually every mechanism known to man, from domestic budgets and environmental funds to untying Western aid, "green" equity schemes, and debt-for-environment swaps.
Biodiversity was up next, but it was a relatively simple process. The UN ECE Working Group had already drawn up the pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy, so it was really only a matter of including it in the declaration for endorsement by the ministers (see Biodiversity in Bulgaria).
Perhaps the most significant achievement of the conference was the Environmental Program for Europe that was endorsed by the ministers in their final declaration, a nonbinding policy document that "addresses some of the findings of the Dobris Assessment and highlights a number of long-term environmental priorities at a pan-European level."
Bill Nitze, from the US EPA, endorsed the EPE for its emphasis on public participation and cleaner production technologies, and also reiterated the necessary "preoccupation with financial issues."
Despite general support for the EPE, the Environmental NGO Coalition did voice some disapproval. In a speech during the fourth plenary, Theresa Herzog, leader of the Swiss NGO Coordination Unit, said that the EPE should have been higher on the Sofia agenda, and that it should have been a mechanism for implementing Agenda 21 throughout Europe. The vigorous applause from around the room seemed to show that others felt the same way.
Putting the entire process into context, Denmark's Minister for Environment Svend Auken said in the final press conference: "We have made important progress, but if you look at environmental problems, particularly with respect to human health, we still have a long way to go." As if rising to the challenge, Auken offered to host the fourth "Environment for Europe" conference in Copenhagen in the spring of 1998. Three years is a long time, and few concrete details have yet been released, but the Danes have hinted that public participation will be high on the agenda, and that a roundtable discussion on the issue hosted by NGOs themselves could well be part of the deal.
"If we didn't have NGOs that were critical, we would have to invent them. [Governments] need that kind of criticism, that is their (NGOs') job," said Auken. "I can assure you that NGOs will have a stronger role in Copenhagen."