APEC and the environment: Any balance at all?
APEC and the environment: Any balance at all?
This is the second of two articles on free trade and
environmental standards under APEC-proposed liberalizations.
By Lyuba Zarsky
BANGKOK: Most APEC countries have taken steps in the last
decade to improve environmental management and reduce the
ecological costs of rapid growth. At a regional level, however,
joint action to chart the environmental impacts of economic
integration and to develop common management frameworks is in its
infancy.
In November, 1993, Prime Minister Chretien of Canada made a
promise to "green" APEC and called for a meeting of environment
ministers. The meeting took place in Vancouver, Canada in March
1994. The Minister issued a set of "Principles for Sustainable
Development". Calling for the "integration of economy and
environment in all sectors and all levels," the ministerial
statement developed nine principles, including a commitment to
sustainable development, the embrace of cost internalization, the
fostering of science and research, and the encouragement of
capacity-building through technology transfer. They also exhorted
APEC members to "support multilateral efforts to make trade and
environment policies mutually supportive."
In August, environmental experts meeting in Chinese Taipei
drafted recommendations for APEC's Work Program. The
recommendations focused largely on the use of market instruments
in environmental management. Both the Principles and
recommendations were endorsed by APEC's Ministerial Meeting in
Bogor, Indonesia in November 1994. In February, 1995, the Senior
Officials Meeting accepted the recommendation that all of APEC's
Committees and Working Groups include environmental issues as
part of their reporting requirements. Some Working Groups, such
as Marine Resource Conservation, had already extended their
purview to environmental concerns.
The initiatives taken to date are far from comprehensive or
even adequate. Nonetheless, they represent a solid and important
opening for discussion and debate. Over the next two years, the
Philippines followed by Canada will be the chairs of APEC. There
is considerable interest within the Canadian government to make
the environment a "key theme". Whether or not it does so will
depend in part on the interest of other APEC countries. The
effectiveness of environmental activists from around the region
in articulating and pressing for a wider and deeper policy agenda
could be pivotal.
No environmental group has yet designed a blueprint for an
APEC environmental agenda. The U.S. group, National Wildlife
Federation, produced a report calling on APEC's Ministerial
Meeting in Osaka in November, 1995 to adopt a "Sustainable
Development Action Plan". NGOs will gather in Tokyo and Osaka to
hold parallel conferences to the official Ministers' meeting.
The overriding question now is should environmental issues be
incorporated into the trade agenda or treated in parallel?
In November 1994, APEC leaders embraced a commitment to
sweeping, across-the-board trade liberalization. Developed
countries agreed to reduce trade and investment barriers by 2010;
developing countries by 2020. The central issue for APEC for the
foreseeable future will be how to implement the "free trade"
commitment. The most likely approach will be for each nation to
develop implementation plans.
On the environment side, the key issue will be whether
environmental issues should be incorporated within the of trade
liberalization or treated in parallel. Trade proponents tend to
argue for the parallel track approach, since building and
sustaining momentum for trade liberalization is politically
difficult. The inclusion of environmental issues could muddy the
waters, they fear, especially if championed by countries whose
commitments to liberalization are lukewarm. The "Western"
countries, including the U.S., Canada, and Australia, are keen to
press ahead with trade liberalization. Southeast Asian countries,
especially Malaysia, are more reticent, and Japan tries to stay
in the middle.
From an environmental point of view, the environmental be
considered before trade barriers are lowered and in tandem with
liberalization. This means that environmental issues should be
integrated into national targets and timeliness for
liberalization. Integration could mean that mitigation policies
at either the national or regional level be in place concurrently
with the liberalization; or, if environmental costs are severe,
that goals and timeliness of liberalization be changed. On the
other hand, if liberalization brings, timeliness could be speeded
up.
Integration of trade and environment diplomacy could also mean
that all APEC nations make a common commitment to internalize
environmental costs and maintain ecosystem health.
Operationalizing such commitments could be undertaken regionally
or, more likely, in the spirit of diversity, left to national
governments. At minimum, each APEC nation would be required to
submit environment management plans concurrently with its
national free trade implementation plans.
Integration of the trade and environmental agendas does not
exhaust the range of beneficial regional cooperation. Parallel
track initiatives are important in building human and
technological capacities, generating and incorporating new
information, and developing common norms for regional
environmental management. The crucial point is that the new
patterns of trade which will be created as a result of trade
liberalization be shaped by an ecological, as well as a narrowly
economic, rationality.
Lyuba Zarsky is with the Nautilus Institute, Berkeley,
California. This article is from a paper presented at a recent
conference on environment and development organized by Focus on
the Global South, Chulalongkorn University.
-- The Nation