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UNCED [United Nations Conference on Environment and Development] – CRS [Congressional Research Service] – Brazil
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120361249
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UNCED [United Nations Conference on Environment and Development] – CRS [Congressional Research Service] – Brazil
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Records of the Council on Environmental Quality (Clinton Administration)
Kathleen McGinty's Files
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FOIA Number: 2012-0769-F
FOIA
MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the William J. Clinton
Presidential Library Staff.
Collection/Record Group:
Clinton Presidential Records
Subgroup/Office of Origin:
Council on Environmental Quality
Series/Staff Member:
Kathleen (Katie) McGinty
Subseries:
OA/ID Number:
2891
FolderID:
Folder Title:
UNCED [United Nations Conference on Environment and Development] - CRS [Congressional
Research Service] - Brazil
Stack:
Row:
Section:
Shelf:
Position:
S
61
5
11
1
91-363 ENR
Revised April 24, 1991
CRS Report for Congress
Congressional Research Service The Library of Congress
United Nations Conference on Environment
and Development (UNCED): Brazil 1992
Susan R. Fletcher
Specialist in International Environmental Policy
Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division
SUMMARY
In 1989, the General Assembly of the United Nations called for a United
Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) to be held in
June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Conference will take up a wide range
of global environmental and development issues. It is the hope of UNCED
organizers that major international conventions will be completed and opened
for signature at the conference. A global climate protection convention and a
biological diversity convention are under negotiation in other forums, and the
United States is strongly encouraging a world forest convention. The United
States, according to State Department spokesmen, places a high priority on
forest management and oceans conservation issues. There are several areas
where potential for international tensions is likely to be the greatest--additional
financing for environmental protection activities in developing countries;
environmental technology transfer; creating economic incentives for
environmentally sustainable resource management; and institutional and legal
issues for more effective international environmental protection.
Questions with regard to domestic issues revolve around whether the U.S.
preparations for the Conference are adequately staffed and coordinated among
the many Federal agencies involved in key issue areas; and whether adequate
public participation and consultation is involved in preparations of U.S.
positions on key issues, as well as in preparation of the national report required
of all participants. It is likely that both the domestic preparations and the U.S.
positions on international issues will continue to be the subject of congressional
hearings during the coming year.
Background
Established by U.N. General Assembly Resolution 44/228, adopted
December 22, 1989, the UNCED will last two weeks, June 1 - 12, 1992. It is
timed to coincide with the 20th Anniversary of the 1972 Stockholm Conference
on the Human Environment, and is expected to be a meeting at the level of
CRS
CRS Reports are prepared for Members and committees of Congress
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heads of state. It is intended to be a major culmination of the growing
international concern over the global environment, and an opportunity for the
world's nations to reach some consensus on how to approach the major global
environment and development linkages.
The U.N. resolution establishing the conference lists the major issues to be
taken up as follows:
-- protection of the atmosphere by combating climate change,
depletion of the ozone layer, and transboundary air pollution;
-- protection of the quality and supply of freshwater resources;
-- protection of the oceans and other seas;
-- protection and management of land resources, including
combating deforestation, desertification, and drought;
-- conservation of biological diversity and environmentally sound
management of biotechnology;
-- environmentally sound waste management;
-- improvement of the environment of the poor in both urban and
rural areas;
-- protection of human health and improving quality of life.
A major emphasis will be on methods of strengthening international
cooperation for environmental management and protection. The resolution
mentions a large number of other objectives, including identification of "ways
and means to provide additional financial resources for measures directed
towards solving major environmental problems of global concern...."
The United States, along with a number of other countries, is reluctant to
entertain the prospect of providing additional financial resources for
environmental protection in other countries. Its position is that needed
financial resources should be redirected from expenditures in other areas,
particularly those that may have negative impacts on the environment; any
additional resources, the United States is arguing, should come from the new
"Global Environment Facility" established by the United Nations Development
Program, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Bank.
However, the questions surrounding additional financial resources and the
form in which they will be handled may prove to be among the most contentious
issues between the North and South, i.e., between the industrialized/developed
countries and the developing countries. In many issue areas, such as tropical
deforestation and global atmospheric change, the industrialized countries
perceive that their own environmental well-being depends upon changes in
energy use or agricultural and natural resource development in other countries;
yet many of the less developed countries express unwillingness to forgo the
types of development practiced by the developed countries, unless they receive
some compensation or economic incentives.
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Organization of UNCED Preparations
Preparations are underway through a series of Preparatory Committee
meetings ("Prepcoms") that began last August in Nairobi, Kenya. The second
prepcom was held March 18 - April 5 in Geneva, Switzerland, and is to be
followed by an August 12 - September 4 meeting, also in Geneva. At least one,
and possibly two, more meetings will be held in New York prior to the
conference in Rio de Janeiro.
The prepcoms are meetings of governments to establish policy; the
chairman of the Preparatory Committee is former Singapore Ambassador to the
United States, Tommy Koh. An independent Secretariat for the Conference has
been established in Geneva under Secretary General Maurice Strong, a Canadian
who was also the Secretary General of the 1972 Stockholm Conference. The
Secretariat arranges the details of the Conference and provides background
reports and information to participants; in addition, the influence of the
Secretary General on the agenda and policy directions can be significant.
Preparatory work for the Conference is divided into working groups; and
all nations may attend the Prepcom and participate in any and all of these
groups. The actual negotiations and discussion often occur in "informal"
meetings on specific issues formed within and by the Working Groups.
Working Group I is dealing with protection of the atmosphere, land
resources (including forest protection and soil loss), biological diversity,
and biotechnology.
Working Group II covers oceans, seas and coastal seas, freshwater
resources, wastes, and toxics.
Working Group III was constituted at the March/April Prepcom
meeting to deal with legal and institutional issues, and met to organize
its terms of reference and agenda at that time. It will begin its debate
and work at the third Prepcom in August/September.
Working Groups I and II were established and began work at the first
Prepcom in August 1990 in Nairobi; the decisions at that meeting involved
requests to the UNCED Secretariat for over 100 reports on specific issues. The
decisions at the second Prepcom meeting in March/April 1991 primarily
responded to the reports submitted by the Secretariat, modifying and refining
the instructions to the Secretariat for completion or revision of these reports.
These decisions also had the effect of further refining and clarifying the subject
matter that is of interest and the likely future shape of the agenda for the
meeting in Brazil.
Cross-cutting issues, such as technology transfer, additional financial
resources, population, and others, have been taken up within individual issue
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areas in each working group, but were also taken up generically in plenary
meetings at the second Prepcom. No decisions on these issues were made at this
last meeting, but it is expected that they will again be taken up in the plenary
meetings for decisions at the next Prepcom.
Among the most prominent anticipated outcomes of the UNCED meeting,
according to Secretary General Maurice Strong, are an "Earth Charter"
containing the basic principles of environmentally sustainable development on
which the nations of the world can agree, which will guide their actions in the
future; and an "Agenda 21" program of action, which will identify action plans
and specific measures needed to carry out these principles. The specifics of
Agenda 21 are still under development, but are expected to include a
computerized system that will allow monitoring of actions and records of
activities all around the world related to the programs agreed upon at UNCED.
In addition, at the last Prepcom, conclusion of two major international
treaties in time for signature at UNCED was stated as a goal by the Secretary
General. The two treaties he mentioned were those on (1) climate change and
(2) biological diversity. [It is important to note that the treaties themselves are
not negotiated within the UNCED prepcom process, but within the separate
negotiation processes established by the United Nations.]
Current Status: United States Preparations
The United States has been an active participant in the prepcom meetings.
U.S. participation is being coordinated in the State Department under Curtis
Bohlen, Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and
Scientific Affairs (known as "OES"). A U.S. coordinating office within OES
(although housed in the offices of the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ))
has been established under Ambassador Robert Ryan; it is coordinating input
from a wide variety of U.S. agencies on key issues, including the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), the U.S. Forest Service, the Agency for International
Development (AID), and many others. Position papers are being prepared by
these agencies in coordination with OES.
Each participating nation is expected to prepare a national report, in
accordance with guidelines established by the United Nations, covering
environmental activities in that country, and key issues it wishes to address.
These reports are due for submission to the UNCED secretariat by July of 1991,
although some delays are likely. The Council on Environmental Quality is
responsible for preparation of the United States national report.
U.S. Priorities and Positions
According to OES, the United States has put the highest priority on two
issue areas, in which it will pursue specific objectives: (1) forest management
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and protection, and (2) oceans and coastal resources conservation. The United
States is seeking completion of a binding international convention on forest
conservation for signature at UNCED; discussions on such a convention have
begun at an ad hoc level. However, the March-April Prepcom revealed extensive
opposition to rapid conclusion of a legally binding forest convention by June of
1992. Although the final Prepcom decision left open the issue of the final
form of consensus on forest management, it endorsed the idea of agreement on
a strong statement of principles, "at a minimum."
U.S. objectives in the oceans area involve a wide array of marine and
coastal resources conservation principles. At the March/April Prepcom, the
United States submitted four extensive substantive papers covering the issues
it felt to be the most important. The Prepcom decision document primarily
urged completion of comprehensive report by the Secretariat requested at the
Nairobi Prepcom, and refined the request for information on many of the issues
sought by the United States.
The United States supports conclusion of a climate change convention by
the 1992 Conference; negotiations on this are currently underway on a separate
track through a United Nations International Negotiating Committee (INC).
The United States is seeking to minimize discussion of climate change issues at
UNCED prepcom meetings in order to preserve a "single negotiating forum" in
the INC set up by the General Assembly. This past prepcom finalized a decision
on climate change that may involve some future substantive discussion of the
issue, but in the context of full recognition of the INC negotiations; the United
States delegation was satisfied that the final wording of this decision will not
impede the operations of the INC.
The United States also supports conclusion of a biological diversity
convention, but many observers feel that the prospects for conclusion of this
treaty by June 1992 are dim. The United States is participating in the
negotiations underway under the auspices of the United Nations Environment
Programme. A major objective of the U.S. position at the UNCED Prepcom in
this issue was to keep substantive negotiation to a minimum in order to
preserve the singly negotiating forum underway under UNEP. The U.S. also
sought successfully at the Prepcom to keep biotechnology discussions separate
from those on biological diversity. As was the case with other issues of the
Working Groups, substantive decisions were deferred until the next prepcom,
and the decision document primarily refined its requests for information from
the UNCED Secretariat.
Congressional Role
Members of Congress will be part of the U.S. delegation to UNCED in 1992,
if they request it. In the meantime, congressional activity will include oversight
hearings during the preparatory process, and may also include introduction of
resolutions concerning U.S. positions on specific issues, and informal
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communications with the Administration concerning various proposed U.S.
positions. Congressional staff will attend prepcom meetings and the 1992
meeting in official observer status.