InterLinkages: International Conference on Synergies and Coordination Between
Multilateral Environmental Agreements
1416 July 1999
Keynote Speech
Akiko Domoto
Dr. van Ginkel, Dr. Topfer, distinguished ladies and gentlemen:
It is a great honour for me to be asked to speak on this occasion. I believe that we will look back on this conference and call it an historic one.
It is no exaggeration to say that the twentieth century has been a century characterized by compartmentalization, specialization and fragmentation. In addition, over the past number of years we have witnessed a rapid process of globalization, most obviously in the economic sphere, but also in areas such as the environment and information. With this process has come a change in values and a paradigm shift, as it were. As a result, international institutions and national administrations have become increasingly unable to address serious environmental and social problems. In the attempts they have made to address them, many overlaps and gaps have appeared.
In short, the twentieth century’s compartmentalized and inflexible methods and systems have become outdated and are no longer appropriate for the twentyfirst century.
Over the past several years, people concerned about this problem have come to the fore within the United Nations, the World Bank, national governments and NGOs in various parts of the world. All of them have pointed out the need for a holistic approach and have developed ideas about what such an approach might look like.
For example, in 1997 the United Nations Development Programme organized a conference in Israel to look at how better to synergize national implementation of the agreements signed at the Earth Summit. In 1998, GLOBE (the Global Legislators Organization for a Balanced Environment) called on the international community to create a “holistic framework which will eliminate redundancies and fill the gaps among the Rio instruments to create synergies in the global system”.
Furthermore, in January of this year, the World Bank’s James Wolfensohn proposed a Comprehensive Development Framework. This framework attempts to develop a system where the macroeconomic and financial aspects of development are considered alongside its structural, social and human aspects. The United Nations, meanwhile, has established a Development Assistance Framework to better coordinate the UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and other developmentrelated UN bodies.
And, as we speak, a high level ECOSOC meeting is taking place in Geneva at which Mr. Wolfensohn is explaining the Comprehensive Development Framework which he has proposed and at which a plan has been announced to enhance daily coordination between the United Nations and the World Bank.
It is fair to say that the demands for greater holism, coordination and synergy that are now being heard in many places around the world are “a sign of the times”. Yet, because expressions like holistic approach, linkages, coordination, and integration are used by individuals in different positions with different perspectives, the content and ideas implied by synergies vary considerably.
I use the term synergies to refer to not only linkages but also integration that leads to better policies, both in terms of content and implementation.
Unfortunately, not only is there no Japanese translation for the word synergy, there is also no word that captures the basic idea behind it.
All of this discussion is not only about keywords. It goes much deeper, for it is clear that we have not yet established a common perception or vision as to what shape a holistic system should take and what the ideal framework is for bringing about such a system.
I feel that this conference is a historic one because it brings together for discussion about the future of synergies people who, though having different positions and different perspectives, share a recognition that the global problems we face are difficult to solve within our present fragmented system.
Our purpose here is to somehow arrive at a common direction and common vision upon which we can base a real paradigm shift in how we address global, and particularly global environmental, problems. The vision we need, I would propose, is one which values peace and environmental conservation and strives to build a better world for future generations.
Since the 1992 Earth Summit, I have had a deep involvement in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity and have felt strongly the need for better coordination and synergy between the two. Regarding global warming, Europeans such as Brundtland, Thatcher, Gorbachev as well as other industrialized country leaders became actively involved in this issue early on. At the Toronto Summit in 1988, President Reagan, President Mitterrand, and Japan’s Prime Minister Takeshita showed very strong leadership which culminated in the adoption of the Framework Convention on Climate Change at the 1992 Earth Summit. The Convention on Biological Diversity, on the other hand, had its origins in IUCN World Conservation Union in the early 1980s. IUCN advocated a holistic approach to the conservation of global biodiversity. In 1988 an ad hoc working group was set up to this end within UNEP, and in 1990 drafting of a convention began. The resulting Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted alongside the Climate Change Convention at the Earth Summit.
That the two conventions were adopted at the same time was a historic event indeed. However, the drafting processes for the two conventions were completely separate, and the contents of the resulting documents have few points of commonality. For instance, while Article 2 of the Climate Change Convention notes that the objective of the Convention is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, there are no specific references to climate change in any of the articles of the Convention on Biological Diversity. In short, the responses to climate change and biodiversity loss are fragmented. To compound the problem, negotiations in the conferences of the parties of the two conventions have, over the years, widened the gap between the conventions. Negotiations surrounding the Climate Change Convention are now largely centered on numerical targets for the reduction of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, the biggest issue under the Convention on Biological Diversity is the assessment of the impact on biological diversity of international trade in genetically modified organisms. A Biosafety Protocol encompassing these issues continues to be negotiated.
However, if one looks at these matters from the perspective of the global environment, it is clear that the atmosphere and the biosphere are part of a whole. The water and air that animals, plants, and microorganisms take in are part of an endless cycle. They cannot be separated. Thus, a holistic system for global environmental conservation is needed which takes into account the impact of climate change on biodiversity and undertakes scientific research to this end.
It was to illustrate this point that, in the lead up to COP3 in Kyoto in 1997, I edited a book entitled “The threat of
Global Warming to Biodiversity”. It contains chapters from over 20 different fields and gives a bird’s eye view of the impact of global warming on a wide range of species. Taking the evidence as a whole, the impact of global warming on biological diversity is conspicuous.
But matters such as what the impact on climate change will be of extensive loss of tropical forest cover, and what the impact on alpine plants of climate change will be are matters that fall into the gap between the two conventions. While the IPCC’s Assessment Reports have looked at the links between climate change, biodiversity, and forests, neither of the Conventions have taken into account these links. As a result, the Conferences of the Parties to the Conventions have not spent time focusing on this very important matter.
This is, in part, due to the location of the secretariats of the two conventions on separate continents; the Secretariat of the Framework Convention on Climate Change is in Bonn, and that of the Convention on Biological Diversity is in Montreal.
For this reason, the government officials that must attend the various COPs are required to travel time and time again to a wide range of places, resulting in serious administrative inefficiency. Particularly for developing countries with few environmental representatives, this is a major inconvenience. Were the Secretariats of the Conventions located in the same place, it would be possible for their staff to deepen mutual understanding and ties on a daily basis.
The problem is not limited to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Other environmentrelated agreements also reflect the fragmentation of our present system. Edith Brown Weiss estimated already in 1992 that as many as 900 international environmental agreements were in existence. More have been negotiated since then. Among these many agreements, there are innumerable overlaps and gaps.
Along with the proliferation of environmental agreements at the international level have come rapid increases in the amount of environmental legislation at the national level. This massive volume contains Japan’s environmental law. The overlaps and gaps that are so prominent in international agreements are reflected in laws at the national level. In short, the fragmentation on the international level results in or compounds fragmentation on the national level. This, in turn, affects even the lowest level of local government.
I would like to give yet another example of the harmful effects of a lack of consistency and failure to take a holistic approach. Sebastian Oberthur explains in his background paper to this conference that, as a result of the banning of CFC production under the Montreal Protocol, the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol and the GEF have been supporting conversion to HFC technology in developing countries and economies in transition. However, HFCs have a high global warming potential and are, therefore, subject to limitations under the Kyoto Protocol. As a result, a contradiction now exists between the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols; how to resolve this conflict is a very important matter indeed. Oberthur points out that, as individual Convention secretariats do not have the capacity to identify potentials for synergy, a specific institution should be assigned this task.
A second example is also in order. As Juan Ovejero points out in his paper, CITES, the Ramsar Convention and the Convention on Biological Diversity all have the conservation of biodiversity as their primary purpose. However, the perspectives of these agreements vary considerably. How to make them more consistent is a matter of great importance. It is only people who are very versed in these conventions that will be able to take on this very difficult task.
As Joy Hyvarinen points out in her paper, different strategies for building such synergies may well be necessary at the national and international levels. She also points out the importance of assessing the level of integration and coordination necessary before moving to an implementation stage. In order to not waste human resources, it is vital to have clear analysis and consistent planning.
Our first challenge, therefore, is to link environmental issues from a scientific perspective. In the environmental sphere, it means linking climate change, losses of biodiversity and forest cover, desertification, endocrine disrupting chemicals, ozone depletion and so many more of the pressing problems we face. This is, fundamentally, what this conference is about. While there are many facets to this linking effort, including the coordination of reporting requirements, project development and funding, I would like to focus here on the scientific challenges that this linking effort will pose.
Much has been and will continue to be achieved by very focused and compartmentalized scientific study, but a great deal of effort will need to go into researching the links between the environmental issues I have just mentioned. What impact do endocrine disrupting chemicals have on biological diversity? What is the combined impact of ozone depletion and endocrine disruption on, say, amphibians? What happens when we add climate change to this equation? In short, science needs to look more at the nexus between environmental problems as well as their combined impact. On the basis of this more holistic, and arguably more “down to earth” science, we can take action that tackles these problems head on, in a combined, synergized, interlinked fashion.
In developing environmental policy, however, it is important to recall the importance of poverty, gender and other social factors. Poverty and war, the imbalance between population and the food supply, and regional disparities are important reasons for the continued decline in environmental quality. In the next century, the formation of environmental policy must be linked to and coordinated with social problems and issues.
The fragmented systems that have solidified at the national and international levels over the years will be by no means easy to reform and reintegrate. In the first place, leadership by the heads of national governments is essential. As I mentioned at the beginning of my presentation, without the kind of leadership demonstrated regarding climate change, culminating in the Earth Summit, dynamic reform will not happen. In a House of Councillors Plenary Session on 25 June, I called on Prime Minister Obuchi to ensure that Japan takes the initiative at next year’s G8 summit in Okinawa in building integrated mechanisms to solve global environmental problems. The Prime Minister promised that Japan would work to build stronger links between government institutions in order to address in a more efficient and effective manner the difficult global environmental problems which we face. I fully expect action to come out of this promise.