The case for a world environment body

Malaysia’s call for the establishment of a World Environment Organisation has met with enthusiastic response from developing countries hobbled by a slew of multilateral environmental agreements, says ZAKRI ABDUL HAMID

THE international community has warmly welcomed Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s call for the establishment of a World Environment Organisation (WEO) — an institution that would help developing countries meet their obligations under a myriad of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) signed over the last 35 years.

Najib made the call in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 12 at the first preparatory meeting of the World Congress on Justice, Governance and Law on Environmental Sustainability scheduled in June next year.

Bakary Kante, a senior official of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said “This is the first time that a leader has gone public and taken an advanced and progressive position for a WEO. The prime minister has understood how important environmental protection is for the future of this country and the world.” Najib’s call was supported by a number of countries participating at a regional preparatory meeting for the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in Seoul.

In his opening address, Henri Djambo, Congo’s minister of sustainable development, forest economy and environment, as the spokesman for Africa in Rio+20 said: “We are confident as we also feel encouraged by the recent announcement of the prime minister of Malaysia who has expressed his wish to see the birth in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 of a global environment body that meets the interests of developing countries and the needs of the planet.” Other countries that supported the idea of the establishment of WEO during the Unescap meeting include Cambodia, Pakistan and Japan.

Separately, France, Germany and Kenya had also expressed support for the WEO.

Najib’s proposal envisions an international organisation that anchors global efforts for the environment while at the same time giving equal emphasis to development.

However, unlike the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which is regulatory and sets standards, the proposed environmental body should be consultative and facilitative to help countries, in particular developing nations, meet global commitments.

Over the years, the international community has adopted hundreds of MEAs, all with their own secretariats and administrations.

From 1992 to 2007, the 18 major MEAs alone convened some 540 meetings which produced more than 5,000 decisions that countries are supposed to act upon through national efforts.

Najib argued that it had become virtually impossible for developing countries to participate meaningfully: “The only countries that cope with the system are the richest countries of the world, while the developing nations are becoming disenfranchised.

“A new body like the WEO could help facilitate the participation of developing countries in a more realistic and meaningful way.” Debate on the proposal will be the focus of a watershed mega-conference next year: the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (dubbed “Rio+20”, since it will take place 20 years after the landmark Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro).

Since the concept was first introduced by the Brundtland Commission in 1987, the international community appears to have a better understanding of sustainable development and the ways in which the economy, environment and human well-being are inter-related and mutually supportive.

However, evidence on the ground doesn’t seem to indicate that the world is walking the talk. Often, economic consideration prevails and environmental imperatives and human well-being are seen as less important.

The situation faced by the global community today is akin to Nero playing his fiddle while Rome was burning. For example, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has revealed that in the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of time in human history, largely to meet growing demands for food, fresh water, timber, fibre and fuel.

While these changes contributed to substantial net gains in human well-being and economic development, they came with a cost in terms of degradation of the environment, and the exacerbation of poverty in many areas of the world.

According to the Nobel Prizewinning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, intense human activities have resulted in the rise of global temperature by 0.75° Celsius in the last 100 years and 1° Celsius during the last 60 years.

Part of the problem is the tendency to juxtapose the three pillars of sustainable development — economic, environmental and social — rather than to integrate them. Hence, environmental and social imperatives are too often regarded as optional add-ons and traded off in favour of simple economic growth.

Some observers are convinced that for Rio+20 to be successful, it has to move away from equating sustainable development with “environmental” issues.

Every time sustainable development is put on the table, its positioning in environmental terms has limited both processes and participation.

Focus must be on a different approach to economic growth.

Sustainable development should not be the purview of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry alone; it needs the buy-in of the Economic Planning Unit, ministries of finance, agriculture and agro-based and others related to development.

At the global level, environmental and social issues need to be deliberated in economic institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and WTO.

The question is how we strike a balance to ensure that countries continue to pursue development to generate national wealth while at the same time mindful that they have both to be people-centred and planet-centred.

A reaffirmation of the political will once demonstrated by the global community in 1992 needs to be rekindled, but with a stronger sense of urgency and purpose. If existing barriers need to be dismantled and new structures set up, Rio+20 is the launching pad that could initiate such a transformation.

Such a transformation already has a strong foundation, embedded in Agenda 21, a blueprint arising from the Earth Summit and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, ironed out at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.

All that is needed now is a commitment to approach the challenges in a holistic and systemic manner, taking into account not only the imperatives at the global level but also paying attention to the needs of the lesser players operating at the regional and national levels.

To translate the rhetoric into action, the world needs a credible and effective vehicle; hence, the case for the establishment of the WEO.

The writer is science adviser to the prime minister

Source: Zakri Abdul Hamid