Will APEC honor pledge on development?<\/p>\n
By Xavier Furtado<\/p>\n
APEC, associated mainly with trade and economic liberalization
\nand development cooperation, is also interested in sustainable
\ndevelopment.<\/p>\n
SINGAPORE: The much-touted \"East Asian miracle\" has exacted a
\nhigh price. While the region's fantastic growth has helped to
\nraise millions of people out of abject poverty, decades of
\nunsustainable development practices have wreaked havoc on the
\nregion's environment. The signs of this are evident to anyone who
\nlives in or has visited the region: smog in Bangkok and Kuala
\nLumpur; polluted waterways in Manila; industrial effluents in
\nHongkong's harbor.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, the projected growth and consumption patterns of
\nEast Asian societies promises to exacerbate this phenomenon. In
\nattempting to address these concerns, and foster region-side
\ncooperation on these issues, what sort of role might there be for
\nAPEC, the region's principal transpacific organization?<\/p>\n
Beginning as a small and informal meeting of trade and
\neconomic ministers, APEC's mandate has grown to address issues
\nsuch as human resource development, marine resource conservation,
\nsustainable development and emerging infectious diseases.<\/p>\n
While some of APEC's working groups have been addressing
\nsustainability issues since its first meeting in Canberra in
\n1989, it was not until the creation of the Sustainable
\nDevelopment Dialogue in 1993 that environmental issues assumed a
\nhigher profile within the forum. Since that time, there have been
\nthree meetings of APEC's Environment Ministers and, increasingly,
\na close examination of APEC's working groups reveals how
\nsustainability issues are influencing the organization's agenda.<\/p>\n
Building on this growing momentum, Canada, as 1997's chair of
\nthe APEC process, tried to strengthen APEC's capacity to address
\nsustainability issues by tabling them at the highest level within
\nAPEC, the Economic Leaders' Meeting.<\/p>\n
At APEC's 1995 meeting in Osaka, it was suggested that the
\nEconomic Committee (EC) undertake an assessment of complex
\nenvironmental issues via a new initiative entitled \"FEEEP\" (food,
\nenergy, environment, economic growth and population). In
\npreparation for last year's Leaders' Meeting in Vancouver, Canada
\norganized and hosted the first ever FEEEP Symposium.<\/p>\n
Held from Sept. 1-4 in Saskatoon, Canada, the Symposium
\nbrought together some 200 policymakers, academics and non-
\ngovernmental organization (NGO) representatives from throughout
\nthe region to focus their expertise on how markets, technology
\nand effective governance might be used to foster sustainable
\ngrowth in the region. The findings of these discussions were fed
\ninto the Interim FEEEP Report to Leaders, prepared by the EC and
\npresented to the Leaders' Meeting in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
Keeping with APEC's focus on economic liberalization and
\ndevelopment cooperation, the bulk of the symposium focused on how
\nmarket mechanisms might be enhanced or extended to areas where
\ngovernments have normally decided the distribution of scarce
\nresources, especially in agriculture and energy production. While
\nthis was deemed acceptable to most of the delegates present, it
\ndid not meet with unanimous approval.<\/p>\n
In particular, Japan's representatives, insisting that \"food
\nsecurity\" was too important to leave to the market, argued that
\nin some instances the market mechanism would be inappropriate. It
\nis likely that these sorts of disagreements are just the
\nbeginning. As the FEEEP agenda continues to evolve, more severe
\ndisagreements will emerge.<\/p>\n
At the Vancouver Leaders' Meeting, both the Ministerial Joint
\nStatement and the Leaders' Declaration, aside from commending the
\nFEEEP task force, also endorsed a series of other initiatives
\npresently being undertaken in the area of sustainable development
\ninside as well as outside of APEC. This included the work of the
\nFisheries Working Group, the Sustainable Cities Program of
\nAction, the creation of an APEC Environmental Protection Center
\nin China and, under the auspices of the Marine Resource
\nConservation Working Group, the work of the Ocean Resource
\nNetwork for the Pacific (ORNEP).<\/p>\n
Additionally, leaders supported members' participation in the
\nUN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) as a way to
\naccelerate international action on addressing greenhouse gases.
\nWhile noteworthy, it is too early to tell whether or not any of
\nthis will result in concrete action.<\/p>\n
While the symposium was an invaluable first step, one cannot
\nhelp but wonder about the future of FEEEP (and these sorts of
\nissues) within APEC. Environmental degradation in the Asia
\nPacific region, after all, is not merely a function of poor
\npolicy development. It is also a question of governance. The
\ninability of the Indonesian government, for example, to enforce
\nits own laws against burning reflects the prevalence of
\nentrenched political\/economic interests in the forestry sector
\nover national and international environmental concerns.<\/p>\n
This tension posed an insurmountable obstacle to effective
\naction. The short-run economic concerns of political and business
\nelites who have, for decades, reaped the benefits of their
\ninvolvement in Indonesia's forestry industry were pit against
\nlonger-term considerations of sustainability (that is, issues
\nthat should also be at the center of responsible government
\npolicy). The challenge to APEC, and the FEEEP task force, will be
\nto find ways to address effectively these types of shortcomings
\nin a forum that is consensual, non-binding and in a region where
\nnational sovereignty is guarded jealously.<\/p>\n
Another consideration is whether or not FEEEP, and APEC's
\ngreater focus on sustainability, will survive beyond 1997. As it
\nis, not all of APEC's members are keen on the FEEEP agenda as it
\nmay stand in the way of rapid economic growth and development.
\nNot only must FEEEP's most enthusiastic supporters move
\ncautiously within APEC to continually forge consensus, but they
\nmust also ensure that, as the chair of APEC passes to other
\nmembers with different sets of priorities, FEEEP concerns are not
\nsubsumed and lost beneath the other issues that make up APEC's
\nexpanding agenda.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the haze that shrouded South-East Asian cities
\na few months ago may be just what governments in the region need.
\nThe haze was a painful demonstration of the transnational
\ncharacter of environmental threats and the detrimental affects
\nthey can have on the region's politics and economic prospects if
\nleft unattended. Even if concerns over sustainability prove
\ninsufficient, maybe the possibility of slowed economic growth,
\nand the threat of political instability, will motivate the
\nregion's leadership to use APEC's penchant for fostering dialogue
\nand collaborative problem-solving to address East Asia's
\nenvironmental woes.<\/p>\n
The writer is a research analyst with the Asia Pacific
\nFoundation of Canada. The views expressed in this piece are his
\nalone and do not necessarily reflect those of the foundation.<\/p>",
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