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Does the Environment Need a New Global Agency? |
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By Julio Godoy*
French
President Jacques Chirac will make efforts to promote the creation
of a UNEO this year. Environmentalists are divided over the proposal;
some see it as useful, others as redundant.
PARIS, Jan 8 (Tierramérica) - The creation
of a new United Nations Environment Organisation (UNEO), proposed
by French President Jacques Chirac, has divided environmentalists.
Some believe it will be useful for combating the challenge posed
by global environmental deterioration, but others see it as a redundant
proposal and a political maneuver by Chirac before the French general
elections due in April and May.
Chirac proposed creating the UNEO on Dec.12 in Paris, after a meeting
with the organizing committee for the International Conference on
Environmental Governance, which the French government is hosting
in February.
According to Chirac, this conference, to be attended by representatives
from about 60 countries, and from many international and non-governmental
organizations, should present "an inventory of the situation of
the global environment and its alarming degradation, and present
priority political proposals that are internationally acceptable."
The Paris conference should also, according to Chirac, "clearly
state that a large number of countries want a UNEO with the material
resources to act and ensure respect for certain rules that are essential
for the future of the biosphere."
Among the countries participating in the conference on Feb. 3-4
will be emerging economies, such as South Africa, Brazil, China
and India, which according to unofficial sources are opposed to
the creation of a UNEO.
Although Chirac proposed the creation of a UNOE as early as 2002,
at the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, the precise
duties of the new institution, other than those already undertaken
by existing multilateral bodies, remain in the dark.
Existing bodies include the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and the various
secretariats responsible for oversight and administration of international
standards like the Kyoto Protocol or the Convention on Biological
Diversity.
"Creating a new international agency for environmental protection
is superfluous. There are sound proposals for environmental policy,
but the centres of power lack the political will to apply them,"
Catherine Reymonet of Friends of the Earth told Tierramérica.
Together with a large number of other French environmentalists,
Reymonet recently wrote a public letter to Chirac, taking him to
task for the discrepancy between his pro-environment speeches and
the policies he has implemented while in office.
Among other things, Reymonet reminded Chirac of his constant championing
of European subsidies for intensive agriculture, and his government's
failure to come up with a transport policy to reduce the use of
fossil fuels and, consequently, emissions of carbon dioxide, and
to prioritise collective transport, by train for example.
Michel Noblecourt, editor-in-chief of Midi Libre, one of the Le
Monde group of newspapers, said that Chirac's proposal was part
of his campaign leading up to the elections in April for a new president
and parliament.
"Environmental protection has become a key issue in the electoral
campaign," Noblecourt wrote in the paper's editorial on Dec. 13,
one day after Chirac's meeting with the conference organizing committee.
"Every candidate's dream is (to appear to be) the perfect defender
of the environment... Beware of campaign promises," the analyst
warned.
But although Chirac, who was first elected president in 1995 and
re-elected in 2002, can stand for the presidential election in April
and May 2007, his chances of winning are very low, due to his age
-- he was 76 on Nov. 29 -- and his low popularity rating.
Under Chirac, France has struggled to fulfil its commitment to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions as set out in the Kyoto Protocol, and to
reduce nitrates in water sources to meet European Union standards.
Some analysts take the view that the existing international environmental
organizations, including UNEP, are working well and only need determined
support from political circles, especially in industrialized countries
like France.
But other groups of activists disagree. "The U.N. doesn't have a
specialized agency for the environment; UNEP is only a mediating
body, without financial means and legislative powers," Susan George,
head of the Transnational Institute, an anti-globalization group,
told Tierramérica.
"The world needs a solid, legitimate and democratic international
institution, to prevent wars over energy sources, privatization
and the alarming degradation of the environment," she said.
UNEP sources in Paris contacted by Tierramérica declined to comment
on Chirac's proposal.
In George's opinion, "sooner or later, a global organization for
the environment will be created."
"At the international level, environmental competencies are very
dispersed and weak, which makes its present governance inconsistent,
lacking a global vision, fragmented and opaque, with neither authority
nor legitimacy. With everybody in charge of it, the environment
is really protected by nobody," the activist concluded.
* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent. |
