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