REC: The Bulletin 7/2: Briefs

Briefs

US President Bill Clinton opened a campaign in July to convince Americans to agree to a legally binding target to limit the greenhouse gas emissions said to cause global warming. In convening a panel of seven eminent scientists including three Nobel Prize winners at the White House, the President said the public must become aware that a legally binding treaty should be signed by the end of this year when more than 150 countries will gather in Japan for the final round of negotiations on changing the current climate change treaty. EU countries have proposed a 15 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from 1990 levels by the year 2010. U.S. officials have rejected that proposal as being too harsh on the U.S. economy. Most developing countries say that global warming has been caused by the century-old Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States. Therefore, they have argued strongly, they should not be asked to make any reductions until they become industrial societies. (Source: EnviroLink Network: www.envirolink.org)

The European Commission has newly allocated ECU 13.4 million to projects to be carried out in relation to the protection of forests in eight European countries. The decision concerns eighteen projects in Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Finland and Sweden relating to the protection of forests against atmospheric pollution, and 107 projects in Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal relating to forest fire prevention. Funds will cover projects geared toward intensive monitoring of forest ecosystems, pilot and demonstration projects meant to improve the understanding of the effects of air pollution on forests, and projects for developing methods to restore damaged forests. (Source: EnviroLink Network: www.envirolink.org)

More than 600 activists from 22 countries protested further construction of the Czech Temelin nuclear power plant during a blockade of the plant beginning July 6. They demanded that studies on the environmental impacts of Temelin be released before any further construction is undertaken. The Czech government insists that because construction was begun under the Communist regime, normal rules of environmental assessment do not apply. (Source: EnviroLink Network: www.envirolink.org)

The REC's Home Page appears to be getting more and more popular by the minute... perhaps even by the second. More than one million visits were made from the beginning of the year to the end of the summer to access REC's online resources, including more than 38,000 visits to the on-line Bulletin. And Lycos, one of the Internet's largest online directories, ranked the REC's Web site among the top 5 percent of all Internet sites worldwide - totaling over 50 million as of June 97. Here's what their review experts say about the site: "... The countries of Eastern Europe Ñ Hungary and the Czech Republic, to name two Ñ have statuesque cities and panoramic countryside views. But the region also has some of the world's highest pollution rates and the environmental scars of years of strip mining. Enter the REC, a collaboration between the US, the European Commission and 10 nations that seeks to solve environmental problems. Sure, you'll find out who's involved at this site, but more valuable are the group's publications, which offer detailed views of the worst situations (like the Danube River, the focus of an enormous restoration project) and a useful directory of environmental officials throughout the region."

The REC's Business Initiatives Team has launched a new major project in the Baltics. The Baltics is the next stop on the Business Team's project road, having already completed two environmental business directories and two emerging market surveys for eight CEE countries and a report on the demand for environmental technologies in five CEE countries. One component will identify the demand of environmental technologies and services in each of the Baltic countries from the perspective of end-users and local environmental technology and service providers (e.g. major industries, municipalities, and the local environmental business sector), and will describe if local providers are able to meet the demand. The second component will identify current active providers of environmental services and technologies and will collect key information about the environmental business sector. For more information please contact Mr. Gerald Fancoj, email: gfancoj@rec.org.