US Department of State Dispatch Supplement
VOL. 3, NO 4
Title: US Environment Initiatives and
the UN Conference on Environment and
Development
Bush
Reilly
Bohlen
Source: Office of Public Communication, Bureau of Public
Affairs
Date: Jun, 12 19926/12/92
Description: Collection
Category: Speeches, Testimony, Statements
Category: Fact sheets
Category: Reports
Region: Whole World
Country: United States, Brazil
Subject: United Nations, Environment, Resource Management
[Text]
President Bush: International Cooperation on Environment and
Development
[Address to the UN Conference on Environment and Development, Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, June 12, 1992]
President Collor, Mr. Secretary General, Heads of Delegation. May I
first express my admiration to Secretary General Boutros-Ghali and
my gratitude to Secretary General Maurice Strong for his tireless
work in bringing this "Earth Summit" together. This is truly a
historic gathering.
The Chinese have a proverb: If a man cheats the earth, the earth will
cheat man. The idea of sustaining the planet so that it may sustain
us is as old as life itself. We must leave this earth in better
condition than we found it.
Today, this old truth must be applied to new threats facing the
resources which sustain us all--the atmosphere and the ocean; the
stratosphere and the biosphere. Our village is truly global. Some
find the challenges ahead overwhelming. I believe that their
pessimism is unfounded.
Twenty years ago, at the Stockholm conference, a chief concern of
our predecessors was the horrible threat of nuclear war--the
ultimate pollutant. No more; upon my return from Rio, I will meet
with Russian President Yeltsin in Washington, and the subject we
will discuss is cooperation--not confrontation.
Twenty years ago, some spoke of the limits to growth. Today, we
realize that growth is the engine of change and the friend of the
environment.
Today, an unprecedented era of peace, freedom, and stability makes
concerted action on the environment possible as never before. This
summit is but one key step in the process of international
cooperation on environment and development. The United States will
work to carry forward the promise of Rio. Because as important as
the road to Rio has been, what matters more is the road from Rio.
There are those who say that cooperation between developed and
developing countries is impossible. Let them come to Latin America,
where debt-for-nature swaps are protecting forests in Costa Rica
and funding pollution control in Chile.
There are those who say that it takes state control to protect the
environment. Let them go to Eastern Europe, where the poisoned
bodies of children now pay for the sins of fallen dictators, and only
the new breeze of freedom is allowing for cleanup.
There are those who say that change can never come because the
interests of the status quo are too powerful. Let them come right
here to Brazil, where President Collor is forging a new approach that
recognizes the economic value of sustaining the rainforest.
There are those who say that economic growth and environmental
protection cannot be compatible. Let them come to the United
States--where, in the 20 years since Stockholm, our economy has
grown by 57%, yet, we have cut the lead going into the air by 97%,
the carbon monoxide by 41%, the particulates by 59%. We've cleaned
up our water and preserved our parks, wilderness, and wildlife.
There are those who say that the leaders of the world do not care
about the earth and the environment. Let them all come to Rio.
We have come to Rio. We've not only seen the concern; we share it.
We not only care; we're taking action. We come to Rio with an action
plan on climate change. It stresses energy efficiency, cleaner air,
reforestation, [and] new technology. And I am happy to report that I
have just signed the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Today, I invite my colleagues from the industrialized world to join
in a prompt start on the convention's implementation. I propose that
our countries meet by January 1 [1993] to lay out our national plans
for meeting the specific commitments in the framework convention.
Let us join in translating the words spoken here into concrete action
to protect the planet.
We come to Rio with a proposal to double global forest assistance.
We stand ready to work together, respecting national sovereignty on
new strategies for forests for the future. As a down payment, we
will double US forest bilateral assistance next year. We will reform
at home, phasing out clear-cutting as a standard practice on US
national forests and working to plant 1 billion trees a year.
We come to Rio with an extensive program of technology
cooperation. We stand ready, government and private sector, to help
spread green technology and launch a new generation of clean
growth.
We come to Rio recognizing that the developing countries must play
a role in protecting the global environment but will need assistance
in pursuing these cleaner growths. So, we stand ready to increase
US international environmental aid by 66% above the 1990 levels, on
top of the more than $2.5 billion that we provide through the
world's development banks for Agenda 21 projects.
We come to Rio with more scientific knowledge about the
environment than ever before and with the wisdom that there is
much we do that's not yet known. We stand ready to share our
science and to lead the world in a program of continued research.
We come to Rio prepared to continue America's unparalleled efforts
to preserve species and habitat. Let me be clear. Our efforts to
protect biodiversity itself will exceed the requirements of the
treaty. But that proposed agreement threatens to retard
biotechnology and undermine the protection of ideas. Unlike the
climate agreement, its financing scheme will not work. It is never
easy to stand alone on principle, but sometimes leadership requires
that you do. Now is such a time.
Let's face it, there has been some criticism of the United States.
But I must tell you, we come to Rio proud of what we have
accomplished and committed to extending the record on American
leadership on the environment. In the United States, we have the
world's tightest air-quality standards on cars and factories, the
most advanced laws for protecting lands and waters, and the most
open processes for public participation.
And now for a simple truth. America's record on environmental
protection is second to none. So, I did not come here to apologize;
we come to press on with deliberate purpose and forceful action.
Such action will demonstrate our continuing commitment to
leadership and to international cooperation on the environment.
We believe that the road to Rio must point toward both
environmental protection and economic growth--environment and
development. By now, it's clear, to sustain development we must
protect the environment, and to protect the environment, we must
sustain development.
It's been said that we don't inherit the earth from our ancestors, we
borrow it from our children. When our children look back on this
time and this place, they will be grateful that we met at Rio. They
will certainly be pleased with the intentions stated and the
commitments made. But they will judge us by the actions we take
from this day forward. Let us not disappoint them.
President Bush: US Signs Climate Convention
[Excerpts from remarks at a news conference, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil,
June 13, 1992]
Well, let me first express my thanks and congratulations to
President Collor and the Brazilian people and to all responsible for
this conference for their hospitality, for their tremendous success
in hosting the earth summit.
It's obvious to all who came to Rio that the Brazilians made a
special effort to accommodate so many heads of states and
delegates and journalists and visitors. And they managed it
flawlessly, and they managed it with grace and good humor. We've
had a very successful visit.
We've signed a climate convention. We've asked others to join us in
presenting action plans for the implementation of the climate
convention. We've won agreement on forest principles. We found a
warm reception among the G-7 and many developing countries to our
Forests for the Future Initiative, and many US proposals on oceans
and public participation on the importance of economic instruments
and free markets were included in this mammoth Agenda 21
document and the Rio Declaration.
Let me be clear on one fundamental point. The United States intends
to be the world's pre-eminent leader in protecting the global
environment. We have been that for many years. We will remain so.
We believe that environment and development, the two subjects of
this conference, can and should go hand-in-hand. A growing economy
creates the resources necessary for environmental protection, and
environmental protection makes growth sustainable over the long
term. I think that recognition of that fact by leaders from around
the world is the central accomplishment of this important Rio
conference.
President Bush: US Policy on the Environment and
Development
[Departure remarks, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, June 11,
1992]
Well, today I travel to Rio de Janeiro to join over 100 heads of state
at the UN Conference on Environment and Development. Informally,
the Rio meeting has been called the earth summit. But I want to
focus for just a minute on the official name. I think it's critical
that we take both those words--environment and development--
equally seriously, and we do.
On the environment, America's record is second to none. No other
nation has done more--more rapidly--to clean up the water, the air,
or preserve public land. No other nation has done more to advance
the state of technology that promises cleaner growth.
We are proposing to double forest assistance. No other nation has
put in place stricter standards to curb pollution in the future. We've
done a great deal, and we are determined to do more.
But let me say up front: I am determined to protect the environment,
and I'm also determined to protect the American taxpayer. The day
of the open checkbook is over. I will go to Rio with a series of sound
proposals designed to foster both environmental protection and
economic growth. I'll sign a climate convention that calls for sound
action--like increased energy efficiency and cleaner air.
I'll offer technology cooperation, because I believe American
technology can help clean up the world's environment. I'll propose to
share US science, the most advanced in the world, to increase
understanding of these complex issues. I'll bring my Forests for the
Future Initiative--the most concrete and effective plan for dealing
with the pressing problems of deforestation of all those that have
been proposed at Rio.
And, finally, I go to Rio with a firm conviction: Environmental
protection and a growing economy are inseparable. No matter what
some people may want to pretend, they are inseparable. It is
counterproductive to promote one at the expense of the other.
For the past half-century, the United States has been a great engine
of global economic growth and it's going to stay that way. Every
American knows what that means for us. What many may not know
is that the world also has a stake in a strong American economy.
Right now, one-half of the developing countries' exports of
manufactured goods to all industrialized nations are sold--yes--in
the United States of America. A weak economy in this country would
harm workers in other nations and cut their export earnings to a
trickle. Nations struggling to meet the most elemental needs of
their people can spare little to protect the environment.
Many governments and many individuals from the United States and
other nations have pressed us to sign a treaty on what's called
"biodiversity." I don't expect that pressure to let up when I reach
Rio. The treaty's intent is noble--to ensure protection of natural
habitat for the world's plants and animal life.
The United States has better protection for species and habitat than
any nation on earth. An no one disagrees with the goal of the treaty,
but the truth is, it contains provisions that have nothing--nothing--
to do with biodiversity.
Take just one example. The private sector is proving it can help
generate solutions to our environmental problem. The treaty
includes provisions that discourage technological innovation, [and]
treats them as common property though they are developed at great
cost by private companies and American workers. We know what
will happen: Remove incentives and we'll see fewer of the
technological advances that help us protect our planet.
My Forests for the Future Initiative will offer real assistance--real
assistance--to protect habitat[s]. A down payment of $150 million
in new US assistance toward the goal of doubling worldwide funding
for forests--it invites developing countries to propose their best
plans for forest conservation, and it encourages innovation like
biotechnology that will help us protect biodiversity worldwide.
I cannot speak for actions other nations may take. But this I
promise: I will stand up for American interests and the interests
of a cleaner environment. And if the United States has to be the only
nation to stand against the biodiversity treaty as now drawn, so be
it. I believe deeply in protecting our common environment, and I will
proudly present in Rio the US record that is second to none anywhere
in the world.
So thank you all very much; and off we go to Rio. And may God bless
our great country. Thank you.
William K. Reilly: Renewing the Earth: Economics and the
Environment
[William K. Reilly, Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency and head of the US Delegation to UNCED
Remarks at the UNCED opening session, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June
3, 1992]
Mr. President, heads of state and heads of government, excellencies,
delegates, and friends: In his 1931 novel, The Violent Land, the
Brazilian writer, Jorge Amado, then just 19 years old, wrote of the
journeys of those who flocked to the lands of the state of Bahia to
clear the forests to grow cocoa. In one passage of the book, the men
are caught in a lightning storm in the forest.
Amado writes: "The men huddled together in fright, for the forest
inspired a religious awe. . . . Here everything was reminiscent of the
beginning of the world. Impenetrable and mysterious, ancient as
time itself and young as spring. . . ."
In like fashion, we have come to this great country to help ensure
that the cycle of the planetary renewal, "ancient as time itself and
young as spring," goes on unimpaired by human activity, remains
friendly to commerce, and continues to sustain healthy life and a
flourishing civilization.
Reviewing the state of this stressed planet and of its striving,
hopeful, and especially its needy people, the United States embraces
enthusiastically the goals of this conference, its priority to
sustainable development and to a better relationship between
humans and nature, the oceans and atmosphere, the forests and the
climate, all species of plants and animals, in a spirit of cooperation
and democratic participation.
Meeting in the nation that is home to the largest and richest forests
on earth, it is fitting that we here give to conservation of forests
our highest priority, and we in the United States do so at this
conference.
Just 2 days ago, President Bush announced an ambitious initiative to
fund forest conservation in developing countries. President Bush's
initiative aims at no less than doubling assistance to developing
countries for forest conservation and sustainable use.
President Bush proposes partnerships between donor and developing
countries--by which countries will come together and craft the
most effective programs for conserving forests, programs built on
the principles of sustainable use.
I want to take this moment to welcome all countries--developed and
developing alike--to join us in this initiative. We can begin now to
forge these forestry partnerships at this historic conference.
The world's forests need our help. Forests are key to a healthy
planet. They provide a home for plants and animals, they regulate
the rain, they sequester carbon, and, thereby, moderate global
climate change. For many nations, they provide valuable economic
goods, including fuel wood, timber, and non-timber products. They
conserve soil, and they renew the human spirit.
But they are being ravaged at an alarming rate. Forty-two million
acres of tropical forests are destroyed each year. Many temperate
and boreal forests are being degraded by air pollution, insects,
disease, fire, and unsustainable cutting.
The United States manages the world's largest forestry program,
spending $6.4 billion a year on domestic forest management, and
reaching an international agreement on principles on forest
conservation of all forests is a top priority of the United States at
this conference.
There are other areas of our global environment that need our
immediate attention. The United States strongly supports the
climate change agreement that more than 140 nations successfully
concluded last month. The United States has taken the lead in
developing an action plan for controlling greenhouse gases that is
detailed and effective. Most of these actions are already underway,
others are awaiting legislative approval. We have already issued the
regulations requiring electrical generating facilities to install
computerized environmental monitors to measure and to report CO2
emissions.
The United States is also committed to protecting the oceans of the
world, and we support development of an UNCED action plan to
control land-based sources of marine pollution and to improve the
protection of marine life.
Real progress on the world's environmental problems cannot be
made, however, without public participation and involvement. In the
United States, we have found that giving people access to
information on the types and amounts of pollutants released in their
communities is one of the most effective means of achieving
environmental improvements. We encourage other countries to
realize the benefits of publicly available information and join us in
endorsing the application of community right to know principles on
an international scale that provides data on pollution from
industrial activities to neighbors, employees, and the general public.
Whether we are able to realize the goals we set for ourselves at
this conference will also depend on technology cooperation and
financial assistance. The United States strongly supports
technology cooperation with developing countries to help them find
sustainable paths to economic development. And while we believe
that each country must pay the major share of its environmental
efforts, we recognize the need for outside resources to assist
developing nations.
To those who still believe that there remains a fundamental conflict
between economic growth and environmental protection--well, let
them travel to Eastern Europe. Let them see the rivers in which
most of the water is so corrosive that it is useless even for cooling
machinery. Let them experience sulfur dioxide levels so high that
500-year-old monuments crumbled in just 40 years. Let them
confront Eastern Europe's spiraling rates of infant mortality,
chronic lung disorders, worker absenteeism, and premature deaths;
cities blackened by thick dust; chemicals that make up a substantial
percentage of river flows.
Entire nations now live in the dark shadow of an environmental
catastrophe because they thought that pollution control would
inhibit their economic growth. Parts of Eastern Europe are literally
uninhabitable; zones of ecological disaster cover more than a
quarter of one country's land area. Russians by the millions live in
cities with dangerously polluted air; in 1988, military gas masks
were issued to thousands of Ukrainians to protect them from toxic
emissions from a meat processing plant.
The sad irony is that the very policies which ravaged these
countries' natural systems--policies intended to relax pollution
controls in order to stimulate economic development--also
devastated their economies. The economic drain from these
environmental burdens, in terms of lost productivity, disability
benefits, health care, and so on is staggering. One environment
minister from Eastern Europe explained to me that environmental
contamination in his country represents a 15% drag on his country's
gross national product. By comparison, combined spending on
pollution control, on air and water pollution, and waste management
in the United States accounts for 2% of GNP, very high by comparison
with other developed countries.
The lessons of Eastern Europe could not be more stark. It carries a
message for all of us at this conference: healthy natural systems
are a sine qua non for all human activity, including economic
activity; a clean and healthy environment is a prerequisite to
sustained economic prosperity. Conversely, however, economic
growth can be and is the engine of environmental improvement. Just
as poverty is the worst pollution, only economic growth can pay for
the scrubbers and baghouses, the wastewater treatment plants and
catalytic converters and clean technologies necessary to
environmental health.
Environmental policy in the United States has been very successful
over the past 20 years, and we offer that experience of high
aspirations, vigorous enforcement, generous allotments for parks
and wildlife refuges and wilderness, and market-based incentives,
such as pollution rights trading, for whatever use it may offer to
other countries. Our pollution levels of air and water are sharply
down compared with 20 years ago, even as our economy has grown.
Many of our rivers run cleaner now that they have at any time in the
past 100 years.
We offer our mistakes, in contaminating large numbers of sites with
hazardous waste--waste that we are now cleaning up at tremendous
expense; in throwing away too much; in straightening and redirecting
rivers and streams; and in profligate loss of soils. Mistakes, too,
can be instructive.
I want to close by noting that the greatest accomplishment of this
conference will not occur here in Rio. It is the role this gathering
will play in rising environmental consciousness in cities, towns, and
villages around the globe.
The Stockholm conference [The Global Conference on the Human
Environment] raised the profile of international environmental
concerns, and many countries followed up by creating environment
ministries. But environment in most countries did not become a
priority issue, nor were the trade, economic, and foreign policies of
nations typically reformed to reflect environmental values.
The promise of this conference is for such reform. Unlike 20 years
ago, the world leaders who gather here next week will be
considering environmental issues not parallel to but integrated with
the central issues of development, trade, agriculture, and commerce;
seeking to reconcile the now inextricably linked goals of economic
growth and environmental protection. So let us make that long-
awaited marriage.
I hope that when we look back 20 years from now, people will say
that it was at Rio in 1992 that it became clear that environment and
development are--and must be--a top priority, integrated with the
traditional high issues of state.
Thus, may Rio become symbolic of a great reconciliation, where
economics seriously takes account of the environment, and where
the developed world engages the developing countries seriously in
taking up the shared and urgent task of restoring an increasingly
beleaguered planet earth.
President Bush: America's Commitment To the Global
Environment
[Address at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland,
June 1, 1992 (introductory remarks deleted)]
Twenty years ago . . . the leaders of the world gathered in Sweden to
talk about the human environment. The Stockholm Declaration that
they adopted had a simple conclusion, that "through fuller knowledge
and wiser action, we can achieve for ourselves and our posterity a
better life in an environment more in keeping with human needs and
hopes." Much has been accomplished since those early days of
environmentalism, and much has been learned.
And we've learned that only market-oriented economies and
democratic systems provide the accountability needed to protect
against environmental degradation. The coating of soot that the
world found when the curtain of secrecy was pulled back from
Eastern Europe was but one visible demonstration of that.
We've learned that the economy can grow even while pollution is
reduced. Since 1973, our GDP has grown by more than 50%. And yet
air quality has gotten better: Emissions of carbon monoxide and
smog-forming ozone, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter are all
down by more than 20%. And water quality has gotten better: We've
achieved an 80% reduction in suspended solids from industrial and
sewage treatment plants.
We've learned that technology--spurred by the right incentives--can
provide help to the environment that no amount of regulation of old
technology could have achieved. Technological progress can cut
pollution rather than increase it. And at the same time, the
efficiency gained is good for profits.
And we've learned that market-based mechanisms and flexibility--
aimed at ambitious objectives and backed up by rigorous
enforcement--can help us solve environmental problems at less cost
than command and control regulation.
We've learned about a new generation of environmental problems
that are global in scope, and that will require international
cooperation to solve.
This week--and I referred to this earlier--over 100 heads of state
will gather in Rio de Janeiro, and it will be time to apply those
lessons. And what better place to discuss our plans for taking on
the problems of the international environment than here at Goddard.
I thought as I was on this little tour--which was all too quick but,
nevertheless, gave me a little feel about the magnificent work that
the wonderful employees of Goddard do--I thought wouldn't it be a
wonderful thing if these 100 or more heads of state could actually
walk through the laboratories here and get a practical feeling for
what it is you are doing; to see how they can better monitor the
changes that they talk about or that they get from their
environmental ministers. It's a wonderful thing. And I think it's
very timely that I've had this opportunity, and I look forward to
sharing with those people down in Rio.
It is science developed here that has given the world a new window
from which to see its environment. A spacecraft managed by
Goddard provided humanity with its first image of earth from space.
It was your scientists--Goddard's scientists--who developed the
Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite launched last year, which is
providing us new insight about the content of the ozone layer.
And the lion's share of the science that the world is using to
understand our climate comes from a program with its heart and
soul right here--the Global Change Research Program, built around
the Mission to Planet Earth that Goddard is developing.
When we go to Rio, the United States will go proudly as the world's
leader, not just in environmental research, but in environmental
action. The United States was the first nation to recognize the
danger of CFC [chlorofluorocarbons] emissions by eliminating
aerosol propellants, which we did in 1978. Other nations are now
following suit--using the aerosol phaseout as credit to meet the
terms of the Montreal Protocol. We are 42% ahead of the schedule
required by that agreement. And earlier this year, on the basis of
science developed by NASA, we unilaterally decided to speed up our
timetable for phasing out CFCs to the end of 1995.
We were the first nation, back in 1975, to adopt catalytic
converters to reduce those emissions from our cars and trucks. In
1982, we began phasing out lead from American gasoline--and now
ambient levels of lead in our air have been cut by 95%. Other nations
are only now taking these two steps.
I came to this office committed to extend America's record of
environmental leadership. And I've worked to do so in a way that is
compatible with economic growth, because this balance is
absolutely essential--and because these are twin goals, not
mutually exclusive objectives.
You see, those who met 20 years ago at Stockholm and called for
this UNCED [UN Conference on Environment and Development], this
summit, explicitly called for the discussion at Rio to be about both
environment and development. And they knew even back then that
the two were inextricably linked.
Only a growing economy can generate the resources and the will to
manage natural assets for the longer term and the common good. But
only assets which are so managed can support the growth on which
so much human hope is hinged. By definition, for development to be
successful in the long term, it has got to be sustainable.
And so I invite comparison of the record that we as a country and as
an Administration have built. It is aggressive. It is comprehensive.
And it is ambitious, but carefully balanced. What we've done in this
Administration reflects the new environmentalism, more
sophisticated in its approach, that harnesses the power of the
marketplace in the service of the environment. Let me give you
some examples.
-- The 1990 Clean Air Act, which I proposed and signed into law, is
the most ambitious air pollution legislation anywhere on earth. It
will cut acid rain; smog; toxic chemical emissions. And yet it will
do so with innovations the whole world is watching. We have a
trading system for sulfur dioxide reductions, have a new generation
of cleaner fuels and cleaner cars, a massive--and, to date,
successful--voluntary air toxics reduction program.
-- Our national parks are under stress from millions of visitors.
And so, just in the last 4 years, we've added over 1.5 million acres
to America's parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and to other public
land. We've created
57 new wildlife refuges and restored or protected more than
500,000 acres a year of important wetlands. And, at the same time,
we've streamlined the permitting process so that projects which
don't hurt wetlands aren't slowed down. And we've made sure to
respect people's private property rights.
-- We've placed a moratorium on oil and gas drilling along the most
environmentally sensitive areas of our coasts; signed new laws to
protect against oil spills; to end below-cost timber sales in
America's largest rain forest, the Tongass; and to promote
environmental education. We've backed our laws up with strict
enforcement to make the polluters pay. And the results have been
record contributions to cleanups from businesses.
-- And we have attended to the international environment--with
new agreements to stop the irresponsible export of toxic wastes, to
ban trade in ivory and thereby stop the extinction of elephants due to
poaching, and to use debt forgiveness to protect the environment
through debt for nature swaps.
In short, our country, America, retains its place at the forefront of
international environmental accomplishment. Our laws have served
as a model for environmental laws the world over.
America's environmental accomplishments have not come by
mistake--they are the result of sustained investment. Today, the
United States spends about 2% of its gross domestic product--over
$100 billion per year--on pollution control. In comparison to other
nations, that's among the highest in the world.
Americans have always believed that actions speak louder than
words. And simple wisdom has guided our approach to the questions
on the table at Rio. We will sign a good agreement on climate
change. It is based on the idea that every nation should prepare an
action strategy--as we in the United States have done.
We first laid our plan on the table in February 1991--with specific
policy proposals and specific calculations concerning how much
greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced. When the science on
CFCs changed, we added new measures, and we again laid our plan on
table. We showed that our policies would reduce projected year
2000 greenhouse gas emissions by 125 million to 200 million tons--
or by 7% to 11%.
No other nation except The Netherlands has laid out such a specific
plan of action. And that's why we insisted that the focus be on
results, not on rhetoric.
It may not have been widely reported in the press, but in area after
area, the United States laid down specific proposals and worked for
their adoption: forests; oceans; living marine resources; public
participation; financing.
Let me be clear: Our commitment to action did not begin and will
not end with Rio. So when I travel down there next week, to Brazil, I
will bring with me several proposals to extend the commitment of
the world community into the future. Let me outline for you my
four-point plan of cooperation:
First, I will propose a major new initiative to protect and enhance
the world's forests. I mentioned lessons learned about cost
effectiveness. Well, halting the loss of the earth's forests is one of
the most cost-effective steps we can take to cut carbon dioxide
emissions.
Forests also filter the air and water. They provide products from
timber and fuelwood to pharmaceuticals and foodstuffs. They are
home to more than half the world's species. At the Houston G-7
[Group of 7] summit 2 years ago, I proposed a global forest
convention. At UNCED, we should get agreement on the principles
leading up to it.
But I propose today to move ahead faster. At Rio, I will ask the
other industrialized countries to join me in doubling worldwide
forest assistance--with a goal of halting the loss of the world's
forests by the end of the decade. As a down payment, the United
States will increase its bilateral forest assistance by $150 million
next year.
The plan is to encourage partnerships--between recipient countries
who could propose new projects and investor countries who, in
effect, could bid to support the most effective proposals for
sequestering CO2 or preserving biodiversity.
Second, with respect to climate: The signing of a convention that
calls for action plans is simply a first step--we must implement
them. So I will join in proposing a prompt start to adoption of
climate action plans. Of course, as new and better science becomes
available on climate change, we will adjust our action plan
accordingly.
The solution to climate change must include the developing
countries. While today they account for about a quarter of the
world's emissions, by the year 2025, they will contribute over half.
So we must have their participation--and we will fund "country
studies" to get them started.
These countries will need new technologies if they are to enjoy
"green growth." And America can provide them. So my budget
includes an investment of almost $1 billion in developing new
energy-efficient technologies.
Hundreds of American businessmen will be traveling to Rio to make
the case for our technology. But this effort must continue. So then
the third part of our plan is to support a program, a broad program of
technology cooperation. In particular, we're going to create a
Technology Cooperation Corps to identify the green technology--
those green technological needs of countries around the world--and
then to knock down the barriers to making it available.
The fourth point of my program for a cleaner future is a continued
program of research and understanding. This year, we are requesting
over $1.4 billion for the Global Change Research Program--that's
more than the amount spent on climate research by the rest of the
world put together.
With [Administrator] Dan Goldin's leadership here at NASA, we will
push for a program that provides results faster, cheaper, and better.
At Rio, I will propose to make the data from our climate change
program available and affordable for scientists and researchers all
around the world.
As part of this effort, we will distribute at that conference, at
UNCED, thousands of copies of computer disks with data on
greenhouse effects, and we will open this year a Global Change
Research information office.
These four steps--a dramatic program to protect and to enhance
forests; quick action on climate change; cooperation in deploying
cleaner, more efficient technology; and then an ongoing program to
develop and share sound science--can help us seize that opportunity
long after those speeches in Rio have been given and the conference
is over.
Two decades ago, when they gathered at Stockholm, the leaders of
the world could not possibly have foreseen the tumultuous events of
the intervening 2 decades. Then they worried about nuclear war as a
chief environmental threat. They couldn't have known that today the
specter of nuclear war--with its unthinkable destruction--would be
calmed as never before in our post-war history.
They could not possibly have envisioned that, with the fall of
statism and communism, those who would come to Rio would have
had the chance to launch a new generation of clean growth--guided
by the wisdom of free peoples and fueled by the power of free
markets.
They could never have known how far we'd have come in 20 years.
Now, it is for us to imagine how much further we can go. And what
better place to make that point than standing before these people
that are dedicated to demonstrating to the rest of the world how
much further we can go.
I am grateful to each and every one of you who gives of himself or
herself to further the science and, thus, to improve and keep
something very, very special--the environmental quality of our
entire world. Thank you for what you do.
Fact Sheet: US Environmental Accomplishments in Support of
UNCED
[Fact sheet released by the Office of the Press Secretary, the White
House, Washington, DC, June 1, 1992.]
On June 12, 1992, President Bush will participate, in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, with the leaders of over 100 nations in the UN Conference on
Environment and Development (UNCED). In his June 1 address at the
Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the President
outlined the record of US achievements in protecting the
environment and proposed a four-point plan of cooperation moving
forward from UNCED.
The four proposals offered by the President for moving forward from
the UNCED meeting include:
-- A major effort to protect and enhance the world's forests, by
doubling worldwide forest assistance: As a down payment on this
initiative, the President pledged to increase US bilateral forest
assistance by $150 million next year;
-- Support for a "prompt start" in implementing the national action
programs called for in the proposed Framework Convention on
Climate Change: The President stated that the US would provide
support for "country studies" to assist developing countries in
formulating national action programs on climate change;
-- A broad program of technology cooperation, including the
establishment of a Technology Cooperation Corps, comprised of
teams of US businessmen and women who would identify the "green
technology" needs of countries around the world and work to remove
barriers to the acquisition of such technology; and
-- Support for increased climate change research with a series of
programs to make earth observation data acquired through NASA's
Mission to Planet Earth available to governments, scientists, and
researchers around the world: To begin this effort, the United
States will make available in Rio thousands of computer disks, each
with a billion bytes of greenhouse effects data. As more definitive
scientific answers become available, the United States will adjust
its action agenda accordingly.
The President noted that the United States had long been at the
forefront of international environmental protection efforts. He
pointed out that the United States has built a solid record of
achievement in many of the areas to be considered at UNCED. What
follows is a more detailed description of that record.
Efforts of the Bush Administration on the Key Subjects To Be
Discussed at UNCED
Atmosphere
Global Climate Change Framework Convention. The United States
expects to sign the Framework Convention on Global Climate Change,
which calls upon industrialized countries to adopt national action
programs that will limit greenhouse gas emissions and protect
greenhouse gas sinks.
The proposed framework convention requires all nations to publish
detailed information on these action plans and to project emissions
that will result from them. The aim of these plans and emissions
projections is to return, by the year 2000, net greenhouse gas
emissions to 1990 levels.
The US Action Agenda on Climate Change. The United States,
throughout the negotiations, believed that the climate agreement
should be aimed at encouraging real actions, as opposed to mere
rhetorical commitments.
The United States is the only nation (except for The Netherlands) to
have published a detailed action plan for limiting net greenhouse gas
emissions.
The United States first laid its detailed action plan on the table at
the initial negotiating session on the framework convention back in
February 1991 at Chantilly, Virginia. At that time, the agenda
projected US net greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2000 to be at
or below 1987 levels.
In early 1992, new scientific evidence indicated that reductions in
CFC [chlorofluorocarbons] emissions would not contribute as much
as previously believed to the mitigation of climate change. In March
1992, the United States published a series of additional measures it
was prepared to undertake to update its action plan.
The results of this update indicate that the US action plan will
reduce US net greenhouse gas emissions in the year 2000 by 125 to
200 million tons, or 7-11%, below projected levels.
Specific US Measures Contained in the Action Agenda:
-- The 1990 Clean Air Act. The act, proposed and signed into law by
President Bush, will reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and other
atmospheric pollutants, including volatile organic compounds,
carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides. In addition, by capping sulfur
dioxide emissions at 10 million tons below 1980 levels and allowing
utilities full freedom of choice in how to achieve reductions, the act
creates a powerful conservation incentive for US electric utilities,
which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
-- America the Beautiful Reforestation Program. The President has
proposed to plant 1 billion trees per year across the United States.
Trees sequester carbon dioxide and thus serve as a sink for
greenhouse gases.
-- The National Energy Strategy (NES). First proposed by President
Bush in February 1991, the NES includes actions to increase
utilization of natural gas (which releases less carbon dioxide per
unit of energy); increase efficiency in coal use; facilitate the safe
use of nuclear energy; increase the use of solar power and other
alternative energy sources; and encourage utilities and consumers to
produce and use electricity efficiently. Legislation incorporating
major elements of the NES has passed both the Senate and the House,
and the Administration has moved ahead administratively with more
than 90 NES measures that do not require legislation.
-- Residential, Commercial, and Industrial Energy Efficiency. The
Bush Administration is pursuing, through existing authority, several
measures to encourage more efficient lighting, building design,
heating and cooling, and appliances. For example, more than 500
companies have already signed up for EPA's "Green Lights" program--
which will bring more energy efficient lighting to over 2 billion
square feet of office space, more than the total office space in New
York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, and Detroit combined.
The Administration proposes to expand similar programs to office
computers, industrial motors, and commercial building heating and
cooling.
In addition, the Department of Energy (DOE) has promulgated rules
improving efficiency standards for energy-consuming home
appliances such as dishwashers and washing machines. Energy
auditing programs are being expanded to aid smaller companies in
identifying and implementing options for low-cost energy saving
investments.
-- Reductions of Other Greenhouse Gases. The EPA will promulgate
rules to reduce methane emissions from landfills, in addition to
pursuing several other methane reduction programs. In total, the
Administration's strategy projects methane emission reductions
totaling 25-58 millions of carbon equivalent by the year 2000.
Protection of the Ozone Layer. In February of this year, President
Bush unilaterally accelerated the US phaseout of ozone-depleting
substances to the end of 1995, 4 years ahead of the international
deadlines set in the amended Montreal Protocol and called on other
nations to match the US commitment. US law (under the Clean Air
Act) also includes a schedule for phase-out of HCFCs [hydrochloro-
fluorocarbons] which is not required under the provisions of the
Montreal Protocol.
The Bush Administration in 1989 implemented a fee on US
production of ozone harming substances (CFCs) to accelerate
reductions. Today, US CFC production levels are 42% below the level
allowed by the Montreal Protocol.
The United States was the first nation to provide funds to assist
developing countries to reduce CFCs. The US will provide $50
million over 3 years to assist developing nations in meeting the
terms of the Montreal Protocol.
Global Change Research. The United States has funded the world's
most extensive program of climate change research. The President's
proposal for $1.4 billion in FY 1993 for the US Global Change
Research Program represents more than is being spent on climate
change research by the rest of the world combined. The United
States has spent over $2.6 billion for global climate research from
1990 to 1992.
Forests
Global Forest Convention. At the Houston in 1990, President Bush
proposed and the G-7 industrialized nations adopted a call for a
global convention to protect and improve the world's forests.
Subsequently, the United States published a comprehensive set of
forestry principles. The United States is working to obtain their
adoption at UNCED.
"Forests for the Future." On June 1, 1992, the President announced a
new initiative to conserve and enhance the earth's forests. This
initiative proposes to double worldwide international forest
conservation assistance to $2.7 billion from $1.35 bil-lion. The
initiative will accelerate international progress toward a global
forest agreement.
As a down payment on the initiative, the United States will increase
bilateral forestry assistance by $150 million next year.
Existing US Forestry Financial Assistance. In its FY 1993 budget,
the Administration has included approximately $121 million in
direct bilateral forest aid. The United States currently provides
additional forest assistance through the interest generated by loan
forgiveness under the Enterprise for the Americas Initiative,
through its contributions to the UN organizations and the World Food
Program, through loan guarantees provided by multilateral
development banks, and through loan guarantees provided by the
Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). In addition, the
United States has pledged $5 million to the Brazil Rainforest Pilot
Program, which was endorsed at previous G-7 meetings.
Since 1988, US international forest conservation assistance has
increased in direct outlays by 156%.
Reforestation. The Administration continues to press for full
funding of its "America the Beautiful" Treeplanting Initiative, which
has a goal of planting 1 billion trees per year across America. This
is the most ambitious reforestation program undertaken by any
country. In FY 1993, the Administration has requested $139 million
for this program. Last year, Congress cut the Administration's $140
million request to $66 million.
Oceans
US Proposals on Oceans at UNCED. The United States is encouraging
other nations to join its proposal to protect oceans, coasts, and
living marine resources, by better controlling land-based pollution
of oceans. The comprehensive strategy proposed by the United
States forms the core of the UNCED Agenda 21 action plan. It would:
-- Use ecosystem approaches to manage living marine resources to
maximize sustainable harvest of fisheries;
-- Improve coastal zone management to ensure ecologically
sensitive coastal development;
-- Create a revolving fund for sewage treatment facilities in
developing countries;
-- Establish a clearinghouse on marine pollution information
through the UN Environment Program (UNEP); and
-- Support the Global Ocean Observing System to improve
understanding of ocean systems.
Driftnet Fishing Ban. The United States led a successful effort for
UN adoption of a resolution to ban large-scale driftnet fishing by the
end of 1992.
Fisheries Development. Through the national fish hatcheries, the
United States produces annually over 200 million fish from over 50
species such as Atlantic salmon, Pacific salmon and steelhead, lake
trout, and striped bass.
Oil Spill Prevention. At the Paris G-7 summit in 1989, President
Bush offered proposals that resulted in the 80-nation Convention on
Oil Spill Preparedness and Response. In 1990, the President signed
the Oil Spill Pollution Act, which requires double hulls on new
tankers and improves oil spill response capabilities.
National Marine Sanctuaries. The United States is home to nine
marine national parks, which harbor a wide diversity of plants and
animals. President Bush has more than doubled these areas to over
5,000 square nautical miles.
Coastal Protection. The President established a moratorium on
offshore oil and gas development until after the year 2000 for 99%
of the California coast, the entire coasts of Washington and Oregon,
and much of the southern Florida and New England coasts.
Water Pollution Control. The President proposed and secured $300
million in FY 1992 to accelerate construction of secondary sewage
treatment plants in the largest American coastal cities which do not
now have secondary treatment, including Boston, New York, Los
Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, and Baltimore. The President has
proposed an additional $340 million in FY 1993 to continue this
effort.
Ban on Ocean Dumping. The Bush Administration secured agreements
to ban ocean dumping of sewage sludge and industrial wastes. As a
result of these agreements, all ocean sludge dumping will cease by
June of this year. The Administration also established a pilot
tracking system to prevent the dumping of medical waste.
Biodiversity
Biodiversity Convention. The United States was an early proponent
of the biodiversity convention and continues to provide strong
support to the conservation of biological diversity through
protection of natural habitats.
The United States is disappointed that the draft biodiversity
convention is seriously flawed and, therefore, has concluded, after a
thorough review, that the United States will not be able to sign the
convention as it now stands. The convention as drafted contains
provisions that go beyond legitimate biodiversity protection goals.
It also does not contain acceptable language, as the climate change
convention does, establishing the role of the Global Environmental
Facility (GEF) in providing financial assistance. In addition, the
draft convention would retard the development of new technology to
meet future needs by providing inadequate protection of intellectual
property rights and implying that biotechnology development is
unsafe.
Biodiversity Research. The United States will propose at Rio de
Janeiro a biodiversity research initiative that will:
1. Suggest the development of biodiversity inventories and surveys
to create the information base necessary for the protection of
species; and
2. Propose the creation of a US center for biological diversity
information.
US Record on Biological Diversity. The United States has a long
record of support for the conservation of biological resources, for
example:
-- The United States contains over 270 million acres of lands
specifically protected as National Parks, Wildlife Refuges,
Wilderness Areas, or Wild and Scenic Rivers.
-- Since 1989, the Bush Administration has created 57 new wildlife
refuges and added over 750,000 acres to the National Wildlife
Refuge system.
-- The 1990 Farm Bill, signed by President Bush, established a
Wetlands Reserve Program, which will restore wetlands previously
converted to cropland to conditions suitable for migrating
waterfowl and other wetland-dependent species. The President has
requested funds to allow the reserve to include 1 million acres.
-- The United States proposed and agreed to an international ban on
trade in ivory, which will help protect the African elephant against
poaching.
-- Under the Bush Administration, the US Agency for International
Development (USAID) has sharply increased its assistance programs
to conserve biodiversity. In the current fiscal year, USAID will
spend over $60 million on conservation of biological diversity, a
five-fold increase over 5 years ago.
-- The US Endangered Species Act is one of the strongest laws for
the protection of threatened or endangered species in the world.
Almost 400 recovery plans for threatened or endangered species are
now in place, compared to less than 50 in 1981.
-- The President signed into law the North American Wetlands
Conservation Act, which will protect the flyways of migratory birds
in the United States and Canada. In 1991 and 1992, the United
States will spend $140 million on the North American Waterfowl
Management Plan.
Wastes
Basel Convention. The Bush Administration signed and proposed
needed legislation to implement the Basel Convention, which
prevents the illegal export and dumping of hazardous waste. The
United States exports less than 1% of the hazardous waste generated
within its borders.
Hazardous Waste Cleanup. The Bush Administration has dramatically
accelerated cleanup progress under the EPA's [Environmental
Protection Agency] Superfund program. Emergency cleanups have
been undertaken to protect human health and the environment at
more than 2,300 sites nationwide, and extensive clean-up is
underway or completed at more than 400 of the most complex sites.
Last year, following the President's directive that polluters should
pay for clean-up, the federal government secured a record $1.4
billion in private party commitments to clean up hazardous wastes.
In each of the last 3 years, Congress has cut President Bush's budget
request for cleanups under the Superfund program.
Voluntary Toxic Reductions. Under the Bush Administration, the EPA
has instituted an innovative program in which companies agree to
reduce releases and off-site transfers of 17 highly toxic chemicals
by 33% in 1992 and 50% by 1995. Over 700 firms have signed up for
this "33/50" program, committing to reduce more than 300 million
lbs. of lawful emissions of the 17 priority chemicals.
Cleaning Up Federal Facilities. The Bush Administration has tripled
funding to clean up facilities owned and operated by the federal
government, in order to ensure that they are brought into compliance
with environmental laws that apply to private sector facilities. For
Department of Energy atomic weapon sites alone, the President has
increased funds devoted to cleanup and compliance activities from
$1.8 billion in FY 1989 to $5.5 billion in FY 1993.
Recycling. President Bush signed [an] executive order to encourage
recycling and waste reduction, as well as procurement of goods
made with recycled materials, at all federal agencies.
Agriculture and Land Management
Agricultural Subsidies. High levels of agricultural subsidies degrade
the environment by encouraging the excessive use of nitrogenous
fertilizers. The United States cut agricultural subsidies by 25% in
the 1990 Farm Bill. Since 1986, the annual level of outlays for
commodity subsidies has fallen from $26 billion to approximately
$12 billion.
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). Under the CRP, the United
States is withdrawing approximately 40 million acres of highly
erodible land from production over the course of 10 years. Under
this program, the government pays the landowner annual rent and a
portion of the costs of installing alternative ground cover.
Parks, Forests, and other Public Lands. Since 1989, the President
has doubled funding for parks, wildlife, and outdoor recreation
programs under his America the Beautiful Initiative. The program
includes:
-- The acquisition of critical nationally significant lands--1.5
million acres have been added since 1989 to America's national
parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and BLM [Bureau of Land
Management] lands;
-- The expansion of recreation opportunities like camping, boating,
fishing, and hiking;
-- The protection of natural resources on these public lands; and
-- The development of partnerships with state governments and
non-profit entities to protect and enhance the public lands.
Included in "America the Beautiful" is a near tripling of grants--to
$60 million in FY 1993--to states under the Land and Water
Conservation Fund for parks and other outdoor recreation facilities.
Wetlands Protection: President Bush has increased funds for
wetlands research, protection, and enhancement from $295 million
in 1989 to $600 million in 1992. His budget for FY 1993 requests
$812 million for this purpose. This funding has allowed the
Administration, in conjunction with state and private partners, to
acquire and conserve almost 2 million acres of valuable wetlands.
Public Participation and Environmental Assessment
US legislation supports public participation through statutes such as
the Administrative Procedures Act, which mandates public hearings
on most regulations, and the Freedom of Information Act, which
provides public access to most government documents.
The United States pioneered the use of environmental impact
assessments, which require notice to the potentially affected public
and allows for a period of public comment.
The US also pioneered programs to provide the public with access to
information on environmental risks. For example, the community
right to-know program, enacted in the mid-1980s, requires
companies to compile inventories of the release of specified
chemicals. These inventories are provided to the government and the
public.
The United States argued successfully for the inclusion in the Rio
Declaration of a principle that notes the importance of public
participation to the achievement of sustainable development.
The United States worked to establish rules at UNCED that enhance
public participation by providing non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) with the opportunity to discuss their concerns with
delegations.
Environmental Education. The President signed into law the National
Environmental Education Act of 1990. The Bush Administration has
established the Environmental Education and Training Foundation to
encourage private sector efforts to improve environmental
education, the Environmental Training Institute to train government
officials and private sector executives from other countries in
dealing with environmental problems, and other programs.
Financial Assistance
The United States has been the world's major contributor of
international assistance for many years. Total US assistance for
economic, environmental, humanitarian, and development purposes
now totals over $11 billion.
In FY 1992, the United States is providing an estimated $580 million
dollars specifically for international environmental financial
assistance.
Global Environment Facility (GEF). The United States and other OECD
[Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries
agree that the GEF should be the principal mechanism for providing
financial assistance to developing countries to meet the incremental
costs of projects that would provide global environmental benefits
in addressing problems in areas such as climate change,
biodiversity, oceans, and ozone depletion. The United States has
contributed $150 million over 3 years in parallel financing and has
pledged $50 million to the core fund of the GEF.
Montreal Protocol Fund. The United States is contributing $50 mil-
lion over 3 years to the interim multilateral fund, established under
the Montreal Protocol to help developing countries meet the
incremental costs of complying with the agreement. The United
States is the first and largest contributor to this fund.
Mexican Border Plan. In support of its efforts to secure a North
American Free Trade Agreement, the Bush Administration has
worked to coordinate and strengthen joint US-Mexico environmental
programs. The Administration developed an environmental action
plan for the border area. The Administration secured $103 million in
FY 1992 for activities in support of this plan and has requested $201
million for these activities in FY 1993.
Brazil Rain Forest Pilot Program. The Bush Administration has
committed $5 million in additional funding for this pilot program,
agreed to at the Houston and London G-7 summits, to protect the
Brazilian rainforest. In addition, the United States provides
approximately $15 million in existing bilateral funds for this
purpose.
Country Studies. The United States will provide $25 million to
developing nations over a 2-year period for climate change country
studies. The money will help these nations implement reporting
obligations under the framework climate convention.
Enterprise for the Americas Initiative (EAI). Under the EAI, the
President has provided, in FY 1991, $34 million and proposed in both
FY 1992 and FY 1993 $100 million for environmental purposes.
Under this program, participating countries in Latin America can
create environmental funds in their own currency from the interest
on debt reduced by the United States.
East European Assistance. The Bush Administration has provided
assistance to establish the Central and East European Environment
Center in Budapest, Hungary. The center seeks to strengthen the
capabilities of non-government organizations to help address
problems such as pesticide disposal, lead in drinking water, and
other problems. In addition, the US initiative to reduce Poland's debt
obligations has allowed the establishment of the Polish
Environmental Foundation.
US-Asia Environmental Partnership. Late last year, the President
announced the establishment of this partnership, an unprecedented
coalition of US and Asian governments, businesses, and community
groups working to improve Asia's environment, with an emphasis on
technology cooperation.
Multilateral Development Lending. The United States worked
successfully for the adoption of a directive that requires
strengthened environmental impact assessments by multilateral
development banks.
Research
The US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The United States
has supported the world's most advanced program of global change
research. Since 1989, the United States has invested over $2.6
billion in research to improve our understanding of critical earth
systems such as climate, oceans, and atmosphere. For FY 1993, the
President has requested $1.4 billion for this program. The United
States investment represents over half the annual amount spent on
global change research by the entire world.
Mission to Planet Earth. The cornerstone of the USGCRP is NASA's
Mission to Planet Earth, a coordinated system of space observations,
science, data processing, and modelling to better understand the
earth's environmental systems. The first NASA launch of a Mission
to Planet Earth satellite occurred last September, when the shuttle
Discovery deployed the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS),
which is providing data on the content of the ozone layer and the
effects of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo on global climate. Under
this program, the United States will launch or participate in 30
additional missions over the next 6 years.
Earth Observing System (EOS). The EOS program, the centerpiece of
Mission to Planet Earth, consists of a series of instruments to be
launched in the late 1990s that will make simultaneous, global-
scale observations of climate and related environmental variables.
At President Bush's direction, the EOS program was restructured in
1991.
Through the use of advanced technology and reduced complexity,
these satellites will be acquired more quickly and at less cost than
previously planned, providing earlier data in order to assist the
policy-making process. The EOS restructuring was consistent with
the emphasis of the President and the new NASA Administrator Dan
Goldin on obtaining "faster, cheaper, and better" results from the
space program. Last week, the President signed a directive
establishing the space-based global change observation system,
which provides a comprehensive policy framework for all federal
space-based observation systems.
Stratospheric Ozone Depletion. It was US science, under the
USGCRP, which allowed scientists to understand and observe
changes in atmospheric chemistry which are leading to the depletion
of stratospheric ozone. NASA results obtained under the USGCRP led
to the announcement in February 1992 that the United States would
speed up its timetable for phasing out the production of CFCs and
other ozone-depleting substances.
Regional Institutes for Global Change. President Bush, during the
1990 White House Conference on Science and Economics Related to
Global Change, invited the countries of the world to join the US in
developing three regional research institutes on global change. On
May 13, 1992, the United States and 10 other countries of the
Americas signed an agreement establishing one of these institutes,
the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research.
Energy Efficiency and Alternative Energy Research. The President's
proposed FY 1993 budget includes over $900 million in research and
development funds for energy-related technologies that increase the
use of alternative sources of energy and increase energy efficiency.
This includes research into electric and hybrid vehicles, high speed
rail and magnetic levitation technology, fuels from biomass,
photovoltaics, and industrial and building energy efficiency. Since
1989, President Bush has increased funding for conservation and
renewable energy research and development at the Department of
Energy from $324 million to $616 mil-lion per year.
Data Sharing. The Bush Administration is committed, as national
policy, to the principle of full and open sharing of all global change
data at the lowest possible cost. The President stated today that
the United States would propose at Rio this policy of making global
change data available to scientists and researchers from around the
world. As a measure of this policy, the United States plans to
distribute at UNCED, at no cost, thousands of computer disks with
over a billion bytes of greenhouse effects data. In addition, the
United States will open, this year, a Global Change Research
Information Office, which will disseminate information on global
change to governments, businesses, scientists, and institutions from
all interested nations.
Long-term US Leadership in Controlling Pollution and Protecting
the Environment
US Commitment to the Environment. The President pointed out that
the United States currently spends more than any other nation in
controlling pollution and protecting the environment: over $100
billion per year, or about 2% of the US gross national product (GNP).
Over the last decade, the United States has spent over $750
billion on pollution control.
US Leadership. The President noted that the United States has been
far ahead of many other nations in recognizing environmental
problems and taking action to solve them.
-- Pollution Control on Automobiles. In 1975, the United States
began requiring catalytic converters on new automobiles. The
European Community will implement this requirement later this
year.
-- Ban on CFC Use as Spray Can Propellants: In 1978, the United
States banned CFC spray-can propellants as a non-essential use for
which there were acceptable substitutes. The United States was one
of the first nations to implement such a ban.
The United States subsequently played a leadership role in
concluding the Vienna Convention, signed in 1985, which established
a framework to respond to the depletion of the ozone layer. Then-
Vice President Bush personally intervened in 1987 to help reach
agreement on the original Mon-treal Protocol, which called for a
50% cut in CFC production. President Bush proposed in 1989 to
phase out CFC production completely as part of the London
amendments to the Protocol, which were signed in 1990. The United
States enacted legislation implementing this phaseout by the end of
1999. Earlier this year, President Bush announced that the United
States was unilaterally accelerating the phaseout of CFCs and
several other ozone depleting substances to the end of 1995.
-- Phaseout of Lead in Gasoline: In 1975, the United States began
phasing out the use of leaded gasoline. Today, 99% of US cars burn
only unleaded fuel, and ambient concentrations of lead in the air
have been reduced by 97%. Unleaded gasoline is still not widely
available in Europe, although several countries are exploring
differential pricing of leaded gasoline as a means to reduce
emissions.
Air Pollution Reductions. Since 1970, US air emissions of lead have
been reduced by 97%; emissions of particulate matter have been
reduced by 59%; emissions of sulfur dioxide have been reduced by
25%; emissions of carbon monoxide have been reduced by 41%;
emissions of volatile organic compounds have been reduced 29%.
Since 1970, US "carbon intensity" or carbon emissions per unit of
GDP, have been reduced by approximately 30%.
From 1970 to 1990, the United States has reduced sulphur dioxide
emissions (SO2) by over 7 million metric tons (mt), particulate
emissions by 11.7 million mt, total carbon monoxide (CO) by about
40 million mt per year, total hydrocarbons (VOCs) by about 6.3
million mt, and lead (Pb) by about 200 million mt per year.
Water Pollution Reductions. Since 1972, the United States has
invested more than $128 billion in federal, state, and local funds to
construct municipal wastewater treatment facilities.
Since 1973, municipal and industrial water discharges of total
suspended solids have been reduced from almost 10 million tons per
year to about 2 million tons per year.
Since 1972, the amount of oxygen-demanding pollutants leaving the
nation's sewage plants has decreased by roughly 46%. Without rapid
improvements in sewage treatment, it would have doubled.
Habitat and Natural Resource Protection. The cumulative length of
rivers designated for federal protection as "wild and scenic" has
increased from 868 miles in 1970 to 9,463 in 1990.
The acreage included in the National wildlife refuge system
increased from 29 million acres in 1970 to 88.5 million acres in
1991.
The number of acres in the US wilderness system increased from
approximately 10 million acres in 1970 to about 95 million acres in
1990.
Since 1972, dolphin captures by US tuna fishermen have been
reduced by 90%.
Fact Sheet: Forests for the Future Initiative
[Fact sheet released by the Office of the Press Secretary, the White
House, Washington, DC, June 1, 1992.]
On June 1, 1992, the President announced an initiative to conserve
and sustain the earth's forests. The Forests for the Future Initiative
builds on the record of US leadership on this critical global
environmental and economic issue. The initiative would put the
world on the path to halting the loss of the earth's forests by the
beginning of the next century, by conserving and sustaining all
forests--tropical, temperate, and boreal.
The President proposed to double worldwide international forest
conservation assistance from $1.4 billion to $2.7 billion, with
participating countries sharing the total on a fair basis. Under the
initiative, countries would be invited to engage in a cooperative
approach in which interested countries propose programs and work
together in forest partnerships.
Benefits of the Initiative
Forest loss is occurring now, not forecast to occur decades from
now. Tropical forests, for example, are being lost at over 17 million
hectares (42 mil-lion acres) per year according to the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO). Fifty percent or more of the
temperate forests in Europe are being degraded by air pollution
according to the World Resources Institute. The President's
initiative will provide several benefits, including:
Biodiversity. Forest conservation can help save the earth's precious
biological diversity that has been developed over the ages. Although
forests cover only a small fraction of the earth's surface, they
contain more than 50% of its species.
Greenhouse Gases. Because forests store carbon, curbing forest loss
would be an extremely cost-effective way to reduce net CO2
emissions. For example, halting the loss of the earth's forests by
2000 would reduce over twice as much CO2 emissions as stabilizing
CO2 emissions from industrialized countries at 1990 levels by
2000, at a fraction of the cost.
Other Environmental Benefits. Forests also play a key role in
preventing soil erosion, limiting flood damage, and ensuring pure
drinking water.
Economic Benefits. Conserving forests can also have important
economic benefits. Forest clearing can be the result of subsidies,
and property rules that encourage short-term revenue at the expense
of more valuable longer-term assets. For example, forests harbor
the secrets of new life-saving drugs and other products. Already,
the rosy periwinkle has provided drugs that mean new life for the
victims of leukemia and Hodgkins disease.
International Assistance
As part of the initiative, the President proposed a goal of doubling
current international forest conservation assistance from $1.4
billion (FAO, 1991) to $2.7 billion next year if other countries join
us.
-- Participating countries would contribute to the total on a fair
basis. As a down payment on the initiative, the United States will
commit now to an additional $150 million in bilateral forest
assistance next year. The United States will continue and, as
appropriate, expand this commitment in the future if other countries
join the initiative.
-- Doubling the level of international assistance would put the
world on a path to halting the loss of the earth's forests by early in
the next century, consistent with the strategy mapped out by several
key forest conservation groups to halt forest loss over a decade by
starting with an investment of $1 billion.
Cooperative Approach
Because the initiative would employ a cooperative approach, no new
international bureaucracy would have to be created.
-- The additional resources would be mobilized through existing
bilateral and multilateral avenues, such as through voluntary "forest
partnerships" between interested parties and potentially including
the World Bank's Global Environment Facility (GEF). Potential
recipients would compete for funding by proposing programs for
forest conservation, and potential investors would compete by
offering funding packages for projects with the greatest benefits.
-- Reliance on these cooperative arrangements would ensure that
(1) the most effective and efficient programs are funded, (2) the
sovereignty of all nations is respected, and (3) programs match the
needs and circumstances of recipient countries.
-- The United States proposes to convene a "Forest Partnership
Forum" by the end of this year to bring together potential investors
and recipients and to share ideas on forest conservation
opportunities.
Toward a Global Forest Agreement
At the 1990 in Hous-ton, the President and his G-7 partners called
for a Global Forest Agreement to conserve the earth's forests. The
Forests for the Future Initiative will accelerate progress toward
that goal.
-- Efforts to advance a Global Forest Agreement have moved slowly
because of the fear that the burden of curbing deforestation would
fall disproportionately on poorer countries.
-- The President's initiative makes clear that the global benefits of
forests will be supported by a globally shared investment. It
creates the market incentives needed to make forest conservation
economically attractive for both investors and recipients. Countries
with forests would not bear the entire burden. Countries without
their own forests also benefit from the earth's forests and would,
therefore, also share in the investment.
-- Forest "conservation" does not mean that forests could no longer
be managed and used as an economic resource. On the contrary, it
includes the idea that forests do have economic value that can be
appropriately sustained in many cases by managing the forest for
multiple uses rather than by converting it permanently to non-forest
status.
President Bush: President Bush To Attend Rio Conference on the
Environment
[Statement released by the White House, Office of the Press
Secretary, Washington, DC, May 12, 1992]
I have just informed President Collor of Brazil, UN Secretary General
Boutros Ghali, and Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) that I will
attend the Rio Conference in early June. Today's environmental
problems are global--and every nation must help in solving them.
As the United States has demonstrated over more than 2 decades,
protecting the environment and encouraging economic growth can go
hand in hand--in fact, it is our conviction that they must go hand in
hand. In the early 1980s, we phased out leaded gasoline. Other
countries are now looking to follow suit. We phased out aerosol
propellants as early as 1978, and, this year, we announced that we
will phase out all CFCs [chlorofluorocarbons] by the end of 1995. In
the last 3 years, we have worked to extend that record--signing a
new clean air act and an oil pollution act, placing a moratorium on
oil and gas drilling in areas off our coasts, investing in our national
parks, launching a program to plant 1 billion trees a year, and
enforcing our environmental laws to make the polluter pay.
Abroad, the United States has worked hard to promote responsible
environmental policies through our bilateral aid programs and
through the World Bank and the UN system. I believe our decades-
long experience in developing and implementing economically sound
policies can help others in improving the environment.
In Rio, world leaders will have before them a number of documents.
One of those documents will be a framework convention on climate
change, which was concluded successfully this past weekend. We
are pleased with the outcome, and I congratulate the negotiators for
joining together in taking this historic step. This framework
convention would not impede economic growth and our ability to
create new jobs.
Climate change is only one subject to be addressed at Rio. It is
vitally important that progress be made as well in protecting our
oceans and living marine resources, in promoting openness and
public participation in environmental decision-making, in promoting
sound management and protection of the world's forests and
biodiversity, and [in] many other areas.
I look forward to discussing how all nations, working together, can
ensure that we hand over to our children and grandchildren a healthy
and safe planet.
Rio Declaration On Environment and Development
[Text of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development adopted
at the final session of the UN Conference on Environment and
Development, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 14, 1992.]
Preamble
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,
Having met at Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992,
Reaffirming the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the
Human Environment, adopted at Stockholm on 16 June 1972, and
seeking to build upon it,
With the goal of establishing a new and equitable global partnership
through the creation of new levels of cooperation among States, key
sectors of societies and people,
Working towards international agreements which respect the
interests of all and protect the integrity of the global environmental
and developmental system,
Recognizing the integral and interdependent nature of the Earth, our
home,
Proclaims that:
Principle 1: Human beings are at the centre of concerns for
sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and
productive life in harmony with nature.
Principle 2: States have, in accordance with the Charter of the
United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign
right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own
environmental and developmental policies, and the responsibility to
ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not
cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond
the limits of national jurisdiction.
Principle 3: The right to development must be fulfilled so as to
equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present
and future generations.
Principle 4: In order to achieve sustainable development,
environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the
development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.
Principle 5: All States and all people shall cooperate in the
essential task of eradicating poverty as an indispensable
requirement for sustainable development, in order to decrease the
disparities in standards of living and better meet the needs of the
majority of the people of the world.
Principle 6: The special situation and needs of developing countries,
particularly the least developed and those most environmentally
vulnerable, shall be given special priority. International actions in
the field of environment and development should also address the
interests and needs of all countries.
Principle 7: States shall cooperate in a spirit of global partnership
to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the
Earth's ecosystem. In view of the different contributions to global
environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated
responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the
responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of
sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies
place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial
resources they command.
Principle 8: To achieve sustainable development and a higher quality
of life for all people, States should reduce and eliminate
unsustainable patterns of production and consumption and promote
appropriate demographic policies.
Principle 9: States should cooperate to strengthen endogenous
capacity-building for sustainable development by improving
scientific understanding through exchanges of scientific and
technological knowledge, and by enhancing the development,
adaptation, diffusion and transfer of technologies, including new and
innovative technologies.
Principle 10: Environmental issues are best handled with the
participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. At the
national level, each individual shall have appropriate access to
information concerning the environment that is held by public
authorities, including information on hazardous materials and
activities in their communities, and the opportunity to participate
in decision-making processes. States shall facilitate and encourage
public awareness and participation by making information widely
available. Effective access to judicial and administrative
proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided.
Principle 11: States shall enact effective environmental legislation.
Environmental standards, management objectives and priorities
should reflect the environmental and developmental context to
which they apply. Standards applied by some countries may be
inappropriate and of unwarranted economic and social cost to other
countries, in particular developing countries.
Principle 12: States should cooperate to promote a supportive and
open international economic system that would lead to economic
growth and sustainable development in all countries, to better
address the problems of environmental degradation. Trade policy
measures for environmental purposes should not constitute a means
of arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised
restriction on international trade. Unilateral actions to deal with
environmental challenges outside the jurisdiction of the importing
country should be avoided. Environmental measures addressing
transboundary or global environmental problems should, as far as
possible, be based on an international consensus.
Principle 13: States shall develop national law regarding liability
and compensation for the victims of pollution and other
environmental damage. States shall also cooperate in an expeditious
and more determined manner to develop further international law
regarding liability and compensation for adverse effects of
environmental damage caused by activities within their jurisdiction
or control to areas beyond their jurisdiction.
Principle 14: States should effectively cooperate to discourage or
prevent the relocation and transfer to other States of any activities
and substances that cause severe environmental degradation or are
found to be harmful to human health.
Principle 15: In order to protect the environment, the precautionary
approach shall be widely applied by States according to their
capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible
damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a
reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent
environmental degradation.
Principle 16: National authorities should endeavor to promote the
internalization of environmental costs and the use of economic
instruments, taking into account the approach that the polluter
should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution, with due regard to
the public interest and without distorting international trade and
investment.
Principle 17: Environmental impact assessment, as a national
instrument, shall be undertaken for proposed activities that are
likely to have a significant adverse impact on the environment and
are subject to a decision of a competent national authority.
Principle 18: States shall immediately notify other States of any
natural disasters or other emergencies that are likely to produce
sudden harmful effects on the environment of those States. Every
effort shall be made by the international community to help States
so afflicted.
Principle 19: States shall provide prior and timely notification and
relevant information to potentially affected States on activities
that may have a significant adverse trans-boundary environmental
effect and shall consult with those States at an early stage and in
good faith.
Principle 20: Women have a vital role in environmental management
and development. Their full participation is therefore essential to
achieve sustainable development.
Principle 21: The creativity, ideals and courage of the youth of the
world should be mobilized to forge a global partnership in order to
achieve sustainable development and ensure a better future for all.
Principle 22: Indigenous people and their communities, and other
local communities, have a vital role in environmental management
and development because of their knowledge and traditional
practices. States should recognize and duly support their identity,
culture and interests and enable their effective participation in the
achievement of sustainable development.
Principle 23: The environment and natural resources of people under
oppression, domination and occupation shall be protected.
Principle 24: Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable
development. States shall therefore respect international law
providing protection for the environment in times of armed conflict
and cooperate in its further development, as necessary.
Principle 25: Peace, development and environmental protection are
interdependent and indivisible.
Principle 26: States shall resolve all their environmental disputes
peacefully and by appropriate means in accordance with the Charter
of the United Nations.
Principle 27: States and people shall cooperate in good faith and in
a spirit of partnership in the fulfillment of the principles embodied
in this Declaration and in the further development of international
law in the field of sustainable development.
Adopted: Unanimously
UNCED Statement of Principles on Forest Management,
Conservation, and Sustainable Development
[Text of a non-legally binding authoritative statement of principles
for a global consensus on the management, conservation, and
sustainable development of all types of forests, adopted at UNCED,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, June 13, 1992.]
Preamble
(a) The subject of forests is related to the entire range of
environmental and development issues and opportunities, including
the right to socio-economic development on a sustainable basis.
(b) The guiding objective of these principles is to contribute to the
management, conservation and sustainable development of forests
and to provide for their multiple and complementary functions and
uses.
(c) Forestry issues and opportunities should be examined in a
holistic and balanced manner within the overall context of
environment and development, taking into consideration the multiple
functions and uses of forests, including traditional uses, and the
likely economic and social stress when these uses are constrained
or restricted, as well as the potential for development that
sustainable forest management can offer.
(d) These principles reflect a first global consensus on forests. In
committing themselves to the prompt implementation of these
principles, countries also decide to keep them under assessment for
their adequacy with regard to further international cooperation on
forest issues.
(e) These principles should apply to all types of forests, both
natural and planted, in all geographic regions and climatic zones,
including austral, boreal, subtemperate, temperate, subtropical and
tropical.
(f) All types of forests embody complex and unique ecological
processes which are the basis for their present and potential
capacity to provide resources to satisfy human needs as well as
environmental values, and as such their sound management and
conservation is of concern to the Governments of the countries to
which they belong and are of value to local communities and to the
environment as a whole.
(g) Forests are essential to economic development and the
maintenance of all forms of life.
(h) Recognizing that the responsibility for forest management,
conservation and sustainable development is in many States
allocated among federal/national, state/provincial and local levels
of government, each State, in accordance with its constitution
and/or national legislation, should pursue these principles at the
appropriate level of government.
Principles/Elements
1. (a) " States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United
Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right
to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental
policies and have the responsibility to ensure that activities within
their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment
of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national
jurisdiction".
(b) The agreed full incremental cost of achieving benefits
associated with forest conservation and sustainable development
requires increased international cooperation and should be equitably
shared by the international community.
2. (a) States have the sovereign and inalienable right to utilize,
manage and develop their forests in accordance with their
development needs and level of socio-economic development and on
the basis of national policies consistent with sustainable
development and legislation, including the conversion of such areas
for other uses within the overall socio-economic development plan
and based on rational land-use policies.
(b) Forest resources and forest lands should be sustainably managed
to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual
human needs of present and future generations. These needs are for
forest products and services, such as wood and wood products,
water, food, fodder, medicine, fuel, shelter, employment, recreation,
habitats for wildlife, landscape diversity, carbon sinks and
reservoirs, and for other forest products. Appropriate measures
should be taken to protect forests against harmful effects of
pollution, including air-born pollution, fires, pests and diseases in
order to maintain their full multiple value.
(c) The provision of timely, reliable and accurate information on
forests and forest ecosystems is essential for public understanding
and informed decision-making and should be ensured.
(d) Governments should promote and provide opportunities for the
participation of interested parties, including local communities and
indigenous people, industries, labour, non-governmental
organizations and individuals, forest dwellers and women, in the
development, implementation and planning of national forest
policies.
3. (a) National policies and strategies should provide a framework
for increased efforts, including the development and strengthening
of institutions and programmes for the management, conservation
and sustainable development of forests and forest lands.
(b) International institutional arrangements, building on those
organizations and mechanisms already in existence, as appropriate,
should facilitate international cooperation in the field of forests.
(c) All aspects of environmental protection and social and economic
development as they relate to forests and forest lands should be
integrated and comprehensive.
4. The vital role of all types of forests in maintaining the
ecological processes and balance at the local, national, regional and
global levels through, inter alia, their role in protecting fragile
ecosystems, watersheds and freshwater resources and as rich
storehouses of biodiversity and biological resources and sources of
genetic material for biotechnology products, as well as
photosynthesis, should be recognized.
5. (a) National forest policies should recognize and duly support the
identity, culture and the rights of indigenous people, their
communities and other communities and forest dwellers.
Appropriate conditions should be promoted for these groups to
enable them to have an economic stake in forest use, perform
economic activities, and achieve and maintain cultural identity and
social organization, as well as adequate levels of livelihood and
well-being, through, inter alia, those land tenure arrangements
which serve as incentives for the sustainable management of
forests.
(b) The full participation of women in all aspects of the
management, conservation and sustainable development of forests
should be actively promoted.
6. (a) All types of forests play an important role in meeting energy
requirements through the provision of a renewable source of bio-
energy, particularly in developing countries, and the demands for
fuelwood for household and industrial needs should be met through
sustainable forest management, afforestation and reforestation. To
this end, the potential contribution of plantations of both indigenous
and introduced species for the provision of both fuel and industrial
wood should be recognized.
(b) National policies and programmes should take into account the
relationship, where it exists, between the conservation,
management and sustainable development of forests and all aspects
related to the production, consumption, recycling and/or final
disposal of forest products.
(c) Decisions taken on the management, conservation and
sustainable development of forest resources should benefit, to the
extent practicable, from a comprehensive assessment of economic
and non-economic values of forest goods and services and of the
environmental costs and benefits. The development and
improvement of methodologies for such evaluations should be
promoted.
(d) The role of planted forests and permanent agricultural crops as
sustainable and environmentally sound sources of renewable energy
and industrial raw material should be recognized, enhanced and
promoted. Their contribution to the maintenance of ecological
processes, to offsetting pressure on primary/old-growth forest and
to providing regional employment and development with the adequate
involvement of local inhabitants should be recognized and enhanced.
(e) Natural forests also constitute a source of goods and services,
and their conservation, sustainable management and use should be
promoted.
7. (a) Efforts should be made to promote a supportive international
economic climate conducive to sustained and environmentally sound
development of forests in all countries, which include, inter alia,
the promotion of sustainable patterns of production and
consumption, the eradication of poverty and the promotion of food
security.
(b) Specific financial resources should be provided to developing
countries with significant forest areas which establish programmes
for the conservation of forests including protected natural forest
areas. These resources should be directed notably to economic
sectors which would stimulate economic and social substitution
activities.
8. (a) Efforts should be undertaken towards the greening of the
world. All countries, notably developed countries, should take
positive and transparent action towards reforestation, afforestation
and forest conservation, as appropriate.
(b) Efforts to maintain and increase forest cover and forest
productivity should be undertaken in ecologically, economically and
socially sound ways through the rehabilitation, reforestation and re-
establishment of trees and forests on unproductive, degraded and
deforested lands, as well as through the management of existing
forest resources.
(c) The implementation of national policies and programmes aimed
at forest management, conservation and sustainable development,
particularly in developing countries, should be supported by
international financial and technical cooperation, including through
the private sector, where appropriate.
(d) Sustainable forest management and use should be carried out in
accordance with national development policies and priorities and on
the basis of environmentally sound national guidelines. In the
formulation of such guidelines, account should be taken, as
appropriate and if applicable, of relevant internationally agreed
methodologies and criteria.
(e) Forest management should be integrated with management of
adjacent areas so as to maintain ecological balance and sustainable
productivity.
(f) National policies and/or legislation aimed at management,
conservation and sustainable development of forests should include
the protection of ecologically viable representative or unique
examples of forests, including primary/old-growth forests,
cultural, spiritual, historical, religious and other unique and valued
forests of national importance.
(g) Access to biological resources, including genetic material, shall
be with due regard to the sovereign rights of the countries where
the forests are located and to the sharing on mutually agreed terms
of technology and profits from biotechnology products that are
derived from these resources.
(h) National policies should ensure that environmental impact
assessments should be carried out where actions are likely to have
significant adverse impacts on important forest resources, and
where such actions are subject to a decision of a competent national
authority.
9. (a) The efforts of developing countries to strengthen the
management, conservation and sustainable development of their
forest resources should be supported by the international
community, taking into account the importance of redressing
external indebtedness, particularly where aggravated by the net
transfer of resources to developed countries, as well as the problem
of achieving at least the replacement value of forests through
improved marketing access for forest products, especially processed
products. In this respect, special attention should also be given to
the countries undergoing the process of transition to market
economies.
(b) the problems that hinder efforts to attain the conservation and
sustainable use of forest resources and that stem from the lack of
alternative options available to local communities, in particular the
urban poor and poor rural populations who are economically and
socially dependent on forests and forest resources, should be
addressed by Governments and the international community.
(c) National policy formulation with respect to all types of forests
should take account of the pressures and demands imposed on forest
ecosystems and resources from influencing factors outside the
forest sector, and intersectoral means of dealing with these
pressures and demands should be sought.
10. New and additional financial resources should be provided to
developing countries to enable them to sustainably manage, conserve
and develop their forest resources, including through afforestation,
reforestation and combating deforestation and forest and land
degradation.
11. In order to enable, in particular, developing countries to enhance
their endogenous capacity and to better manage, conserve and
develop their forest resources, the access to and transfer of
environmentally sound technologies and corresponding know-how on
favourable terms, including on concessional and preferential terms,
as mutually agreed, in accordance with the relevant provisions of
Agenda 21, should be promoted, facilitated and financed, as
appropriate.
12. (a) Scientific research, forest inventories and assessments
carried out by national institutions which take into account, where
relevant, biological, physical, social and economic variables, as
well as technological development and its application in the field of
sustainable forest management, conservation and development,
should be strengthened through effective modalities, including
international cooperation. In this context, attention should also be
given to research and development of sustainably harvested non-
wood products.
(b) National and, where appropriate, regional and international
institutional capabilities in education, training, science, and
technology, economics, anthropology and social aspects of forests
and forest management are essential to the conservation and
sustainable development of forests and should be strengthened.
(c) International exchange of information on the results of forest
and forest management research and development should be enhanced
and broadened, as appropriate, making full use of education and
training institutions, including those in the private sector.
(d) Appropriate indigenous capacity and local knowledge regarding
the conservation and sustainable development of forests should,
through institutional and financial support, and in collaboration with
the people in local communities concerned, be recognized, respected,
recorded, developed and, as appropriate, introduced in the
implementation of programmes. Benefits arising from the
utilization of indigenous knowledge should therefore be equitably
shared with such people.
13. (a) Trade in forest products should be based on non-
discriminatory and multilaterally agreed rules and procedures
consistent with international trade law and practices. In this
context, open and free international trade in forest products should
be facilitated.
(b) Reduction or removal of tariff barriers and impediments to the
provision of better market access and better prices for higher
value-added forest products and their local processing should be
encouraged to enable producer countries to better conserve and
manage their renewable forest resources.
(c) Incorporation of environmental costs and benefits into market
forces and mechanisms, in order to achieve forest conservation and
sustainable development, should be encouraged both domestically
and internationally.
(d) Forest conservation and sustainable development policies should
be integrated with economic, trade and other relevant policies.
(e) Fiscal, trade, industrial, transportation and other policies and
practices that may lead to forest degradation should be avoided.
Adequate policies, aimed at management, conservation and
sustainable development of forests, including where appropriate,
incentives, should be encouraged.
14. Unilateral measures, incompatible with international
obligations or agreements, to restrict and/or ban international trade
in timber or other forest products should be removed or avoided, in
order to attain long-term sustainable forest management.
15. Pollutants, particularly air-borne pollutants, including those
responsible for acidic deposition, that are harmful to the health of
forest ecosystems at the local, national, regional and global levels
should be controlled.
Michael Young, William Reilly: US Delegation Press
Briefings
June 8, 1992
[Excerpts from a briefing by Michael Young, the Deputy Under
Secretary for Economic Affairs and alternate head of the US
delegation to UNCED.]
Q. The United States has been taking a lot of hammering at this
meeting. What can be done, what is being done between now and
when the President arrives to improve the perception of the United
States and its position here?
A. Well, improving perceptions is always difficult because we have
a little trouble persuading all of you to read the substance of the
conventions and so forth, so we're going to pass out copies of all
these documents and encourage you to engage on the substance with
us . . . I also think that, in fact, many of the issues that have been so
contentious are being better understood and are coming to
resolutions. I think as that happens the constructive US role in
environmental protection becomes clearer and clearer, and we hope
that that will turn things some. . . .
Q. There's some language in the latest draft that seems to involve a
concession to the United States in terms, once again, of levels of
commitment and timetables. Is there any sense in the course of
those negotiations of a tit-for-tat, for a concession on that versus
some chance of once again reviving acceptable language on
biodiversity?
A. No.
Q. We've heard from India this morning that the forest principle
document is basically worthless--should not be signed, that there's
no point to it any longer, and that any actions by the United States
have been too little, too late. Could you please respond on that . . . .
A. . . . in point of fact, the United States has been the strongest
proponent of strong forest principles in addition to hoping that this
conference would be in a position to be able to make a call for a
convention on forest protection. The President says that the
Houston summit [of the G-7 industrialized nations] has articulated
very strong views on protection of forests. We have articulated--
through[out] this conference and in the preparation conferences
leading up to it--the need for protection of forests, in part, for the
purposes of preservation of the diversity of species . . . and I will
confess we have been disappointed.
The notion that the United States has come forward with too little
too late has got the story backward. In fact, a number of other
countries have resisted our call for very strong forest principles.
Indeed . . . when one looks at the biodiversity convention, part of the
problem [is] that it talks about a whole lot of things except
protection of oceans and forests and places where you actually find
the diversity of species. So we wish that forest principles would be
stronger. We are disappointed that there isn't a strong enough
environmental commitment to make those better, but we will
certainly push that process as hard as we can to get as strong a
commitment on forests as we can.
Q. Back to biodiversity. There's a situation in Costa Rica, I
understand, where a pharmaceutical company has done a deal in
terms of purchasing genetic resources. Is that kind of an example of
something the United States supports, if so, or even if not, how does
it differ with the text of the treaty?
A. . . . The United States warmly supports that because we do think
that countries need to be rewarded for the resources that they make
available to help improve the quality of life here in the world. At
the same time, the operative element of that deal is that it was an
agreement between the country and the private company that was
seeking to secure the resources out of the Costa Rican forest. The
problem with the biodiversity convention is that it would intrude
the government into that as a sort of mandatory regulatory process,
and I think a big part of the problem with biotechnology is that if it
is an industry that is over-regulated . . . the very industry that may
be responsible for making dramatic improvements in the quality of
life throughout the world--in the eradication of poverty, in the
improvement of the environment, and so forth get stifled. And if
that happens, one of our best chances for genuine improvements in
the quality of life--for genuine improvements in ecological
developments--gets destroyed. . . .
Q. President Bush has made a connection between our signing of the
biological diversity treaty and [the] loss of jobs. That connection
has been greeted with great skepticism in many quarters, including
among members of Congress and in private conversations with some
people who have been involved in the negotiation of the treaty.
Could you please explicate for us how the signing of the biodiversity
treaty would lead to a loss of jobs in the United States?
A. . . . I will encourage you to ask the President that question. . . .
[Secondly] a lot of it has to do with the sort of the thrust of that
convention, which . . . suggests that there ought to be some high
level of international regulation of the biotechnology industry,
which is, at least, if history is any guide, not something likely to
lead to the creation of jobs . . . .
I would also step back and reiterate my point that it isn't just a
question of whether that is a viable industry and there are fewer or
more scientists being employed in it . . . but it's the very need to
create dynamic, vibrant intellectual communities that are doing that
kind of work in order to produce technology that really can have the
kind of improving effect that we would hope for. I think that's
really the essence of the problem. Jobs may or may not be a by-
product of that. . . .
Q. There have been reports that the US Government has been putting
pressure on the Governments of Austria, Switzerland, and The
Netherlands not to put together an agreement outside the climate
convention that would commit them and perhaps some other
European nations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the year
2000 at 1990 levels. Essentially an attempt to put some extra
pressure on those countries who are against these limits. Is this
true? Has the US Government been putting pressure on them not to
sign this agreement among themselves?
A. No, the US Government never puts pressure on anybody. . . .
However, our position with respect to that effort has been clear. We
continue to think that the notion of setting targets and timetables
really does put the cart before the horse. . . . There is a fundamental
need to determine specific and precise actions that people are going
to take to improve the quality of the air and CO2 emissions.
The United States has and continues to have among the world's
strongest clean air acts. As, indeed, the UK environmental minister
said, the United States is worlds ahead of all the other countries in
terms of preparing very specific national strategies for dealing with
the reduction of CO2 emissions, and he hoped other countries would
follow suit, indeed, as we do as well. I think at the moment, the
United States and The Netherlands may be the only two countries
that have that, so we continue to think that is an ill-conceived
venture and have not hesitated to say so to our allies and to the
press and everyone as well, and we have continued to say that. . . .
June 9, 1992
[Excerpts from a briefing by Michael Young.]
Q. Great Britain is just announcing now that it is going to sign the
biodiversity convention. Your last ally has disappeared. Do you now
admit that the American strategy for the first week of the
conference lies in ruins?
A. We, somehow, don't think of Britain as having disappeared [as an
ally] because of signing the biodiversity convention. No. No, in fact,
we still feel rather strongly about the need to do something actually
useful for biodiversity rather than signing the biodiversity
convention. We hope countries will set aside the rhetoric at some
point and actually join in commitments to do strong things about
oceans--which they seem prepared to do--and also strong things
with respect to forests, with respect to which there is, at the
moment, less agreement. We would actually like to see some
concrete actions. However much we enjoyed the rhetoric, we would
like to see some agreements to concrete action, and that principle
remains in tact. . . .
Q. Today, the Danish environmental minister [said] that the US
delegation now agreed with the EEC [European Economic Community]
countries on the climate convention, that the convention commits
the United States to reduce the level of carbon dioxide emission at
the end of the century at the rate of 1990. Can you confirm that?
A. Well, I can simply cite the language of the convention. We do aim
to reduce it, as we always have, and that continues to be an aim. . . .
What the convention does that we think is particularly productive is
remove the focus a bit from the question of what the end-game is
and start asking people what very specific steps they intend to take
to reach whatever goals that they think are specified in the
convention. It is that process that is particularly important, and a
process upon which we want to keep the focus, because that is, in
fact, the delineation of the concrete steps countries will actually
take. We have countries beginning to identify what steps they'll
take, but nobody is very far along except the United States and The
Netherlands, at the moment. We hope that process of delineating
very concrete actions, as opposed to engaging in interesting but
somewhat rhetorical debates, will increase.
Q. Can you be a little bit more specific--what other problems does
the United States have with the Rio Declaration?
A. [T]he problem is, in part, related to determining precisely what
the meaning is. The right to develop is one problem. There is an
article that suggests liability or responsibility for environmental
damage may rest entirely with the developed countries, which is
neither accurate nor a terribly productive way to focus on solving
the problem. . . .
Q. Given that America is increasingly isolated . . . on the question of
biodiversity, do you take seriously remarks from delegations from
resource-rich countries . . . that those countries which do not sign up
to the biodiversity convention once it's ratified stand the risk of
losing out, in that their companies will lose access to the resource-
rich territories that you so clearly see as important to your trade?
A. No. I think that's even as problematic as certain provisions of
the biodiversity convention are. I think that's not a necessary or--
my guess would be--even likely result unless the countries decide
it simply as a punitive matter not to allow American companies in
because we hadn't signed, which would create problems of unilateral
trade actions to change one's domestic behavior. Indeed, the things
called for as a substantive matter in the biodiversity convention are
things well short of what the United States is already doing, so in
terms of changing US behavior by threatening trade sanctions, it
would be a slightly odd response. . . . There is in the regulatory
regime, such as it is set up in the biodiversity convention, nothing
that would fairly preclude a company from continuing to negotiate
with the country or with the private owners of land in that country,
if that were the case, so it's a little hard to see on what basis that
kind of an assertion is made. . . .
Q. On the forestry principles, could you be specific about the
sticking points that are important to the United States, and how you
hope to see those resolved. . . .
A. . . . There are two or three principles that we feel quite strongly
about. One is the determination of appropriate use of the forest;
determination of ways in which one might balance off the use of the
forest with the preservation of the forest and all the good and
necessary things that the forests do. So far, the principal sticking
point, I think, has been our sense of the general reluctance of
countries, some countries in any event, to commit to taking serious
concrete steps to deal with those problems. . . . Again, on the other
side, there is the attempt by some countries to put in lots of
requirements for lots of money before anybody does anything. Again,
raising the question of both balance and logic, in terms of trying to
make the money available before we know what we are going to do
with it, that is something that we have resisted throughout the
conference.
June 10, 1992
[Excerpts from a briefing by Michael Young.]
Q. Can you say something about where we are on new and additional
resources? There are indications that both Japan and the European
Community are considering significant, if not substantial, amounts
of new and additional resources. Where does that leave you?
A. Well, we have already announced in a whole variety of areas, even
in the last few months . . . new and additional resources dealing with
a range of environmental problems, international environmental
problems, of a quarter of a billion dollars. . . . We would warmly
welcome--indeed, in a call for a forest initiative our President
hoped that other countries would also commit additional resources
to it--we would warmly applaud commitments from other countries
for new and additional resources, as we have offered some
ourselves.
Q. . . . Are you prepared to be a little more specific on what is
considered, at this point, an acceptable solution on [the] finance
issue for the United States?
A. The over-arching thrust all along of our approach has been that
we feel quite strongly that the financial resources chapter [of
Agenda 21] has to reflect a series of basic premises on which we
thought we were operating. Number one: that we figure out what
money is going to be used for, before we create huge pots of money.
I mean this is--and I'm surprised I haven't really seen this remarked
on much yet in the press--this conference is little bit reminiscent
of development conference in the 1960s, where the major issue was,
or at least the dialogue went something like this: Please put a huge
pot of money there, and we will figure out how to spend that money
and send you a little postcard telling you how we spent it. And we
said, that's a little tough to sell to our people. Moreover, it's not
clear that that is a very productive way to actually create infusions
of capital that do genuine good in a country. We resisted that all
through the 1960s and the early 1970s as a sort of a dialogic
framework within which we were willing to operate.
We were isolated then as we are now, to some extent. But I must
say, from my perspective it is not a bad position to be isolated in.
We were right then. . . . The economic ministers throughout much of
the world have discovered that and taken that on board. I think we
are facing, at least, some of the same debate here--the attempt to
try and create a huge pool of money and then sort of tell everybody
later on how it is going to be spent. We want to see some specific
ideas of what needs to be done and what the priorities are for
accomplishing that.
Secondly, we are concerned that there will be some intelligent
analysis of how one generates and maximizes the resources
available. There is, at the end of the day, going to be a limit on the
amount that developed countries give, however generous the United
States and Germany and Japan and other countries are. The vast bulk
of the money in the world is in private hands, and it's critical that
we find ways to get that to create climates, economic climates--
not to be confused, I suppose, with global climates--into which that
money will come for environmentally sound and sustainable
development purposes. . . .
When we figure out how to mobilize the most resources, then we can
start talking about what will be the tail of the dog instead of the
dog. That is, resources that come from the international community
as a matter of overseas development assistance. . . .
Q. . . . Why is it that the United States is unable to support any kind
of reference to over-consumption in developed nations so that it is
possible that resources will be better distributed . . . in the Rio
Declaration or in any kind of earth charter?
A. That's a very good question. . . . In fact, there are a number of
references to consumption patterns. The United State has no trouble
with that at all. We have been willing to accept a number of
formulations with respect to consumption patterns. So I think the
premise of your question is inaccurate.
However, let me go and step back, if I may, and sort of tell you a
little of the US position. . . . Our objection has been really more to
references that governments ought to control lifestyles, in part
because--and I think this is an important point to keep in mind--
underlying these words, underlying the rhetoric is often a real
conflict of some very fundamental values. I think we lose sight of
that sometimes as the lawyers get involved in tremendous debates
over where a comma is situated. In fact, underlying that debate . . .
is a very fundamental policy debate on which I think there are some
differences that we don't particularly want to paper over. . . . We
think that countries should work very diligently to structure
consumption patterns in a way that allows sustainable development.
On the other hand, we don't generally think that history has shown it
to be productive for governments to intervene directly in lifestyles
on a personal basis, and there is a very fundamental difference in
terms of how one regulates one's country. . . . History has shown
[that approach is] not productive. Indeed, it's not shown it to be
environmentally sound, as much of the last 45 years of East
European history suggests as well.
At the same time, we also think that the answer is not to stop
economic growth. We have not been pressing the developing world to
put a cap on their economic growth . . . because, again, that is not the
best way to resolve environmental problems. Shifting consumption
patterns to ways that allow sustainable development and use of only
those renewable world resources is something that we applaud and
have been working toward. Regu-lation in the more minute levels of
how people live, however, has not been shown to be helpful.
Q. . . . What will happen after Rio. . . . Is it your committee that
moves with that, is it those of us from the press, and how does that
happen after Rio? What is the mechanism in place?
A. That's a good question. The thrust of the question, "Is it the
press, it is the UN, is it the international community, is it the
transnational business that moves this on?" And the answer is yes.
It is all of those.
I think one can anticipate this having an impact on two or three
different levels. Number one, there are some institutional
arrangements that have been set up. The sustainable development
commission will work in conjunction with ECOSOC [UN Economic and
Social Committee] and the UN to keep attention focused on follow-up
and monitoring of the progress with respect to the commitments, as
well as with respect to the flows of resources and monies
available to live up to those commitments. I think that's a very
helpful development.
More importantly, I think, this conference has focused the attention
of the world on addressing what is really a fundamental issue of
how we allow countries to improve their lives, lives of the people in
those countries, and, at the same time, doing it in a way that is
consistent with us continuing to live on this planet. I think we will
see--because it is an issue that has gotten tremendous international
attention--lots of people in lots of governments, as well as lots of
people in lots of corporations turning their attention to this matter,
and there are opportunities for lots of mutual interaction. I mean,
let me give you one suggestion. We have in the United States, as our
head of delegation has recently discussed, an increasing pattern of
encouragement of companies from the United States to adhere to US
environmental standards as they go abroad and set up shop in order
to show that US environmental standards are compatible with being
competitive and productive. . . . And, moreover, to show that our
reasons for sitting in other countries are not to take advantage of
some weaker environmental laws but to take advantage of the
proximity to natural resources and other sorts of advantages that
inure when you site your plants somewhere else.
Those kinds of partnerships at the voluntary level, as well as lots of
things that I think we will do in terms of strengthening the
international codes . . . will be helpful. I think this is a step in a
process, and I do hope that the international press and domestic
press play a big role in that--although I hope it's slightly more
issue-oriented than your role has been in this conference--but I
really do think that can be extremely helpful, and [I] anticipate that
that will come. There may also be some call for some specific
conventions which may also flow out of this as well. . . .
Q. I just wanted to ask about the attitude or the real attitude of the
US Government toward the summit. Down here your delegation has
been very constructive, very mild, has praised its interlocutors, and
had good words to say for everything and everybody. But, meanwhile,
in Washington, senior Administration officials are talking with
reporters not for attribution [and] are calling the proceedings here a
circus. What I wanted to know is whether this is a deliberate two-
track policy that the United States is pursuing vis-a-vis this
conference, whether there is a logic behind the two approaches?
Which of the two approaches does represent the real US position
toward this conference?
A. Circus is not perjorative. I mean, we mean it in the kindest
possible way. . . . Certainly viewing this from afar, it is harder to
see the complexity of the negotiations that have been going on, the
trade-offs, the levels of satisfaction and so forth that have been
achieved in a variety of areas. One might think this is somewhat
more chaotic than we do. . . . But I've felt it's been, on the
negotiating level, constructive with a great deal of goodwill shown
on both sides. We've resolved a number of very, very difficult
issues. Some we have decided together not to resolve and sort of
punt for another day, but I stand by my characterization of what
we've done.
June 11, 1992
[Excerpts from a briefing by William Reilly, head of the US
delegation to UNCED.]
Good afternoon. We are moving into the final phase of this
conference. It's time to begin to focus on follow-up, on action, on
implementation of the kinds of commitments that we have made
here, many of which, I think, will prove to be historic. I want to
take a very short period of time this morning . . . to make two
announcements.
The first is that we are pleased to announce, today, a series of
activities to facilitate prompt start of the climate change
convention. It continues to be my belief that the climate change
treaty is a vital first step and a promising instrument in addressing
this glo