OECD ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS SHARED GOALS FOR ACTION (available at http://www.oecd.org/)

Paris, 3 April 1998

Implementing Sustainable Development...

1. OECD Environment Ministers (1), at their meeting in Paris on 2-3 April 1998, reaffirmed the leadership role and special responsibilities of OECD countries in the world-wide pursuit of sustainable development, in accordance with Agenda 21, as elaborated at the UN General Assembly Special Session in June 1997 (UNGASS). Ministers acknowledged the OECD’s unique capabilities to contribute to these objectives through development of analytical tools and strategies; promotion of the integration of economic, social and environmental policies; objective assessment of progress through peer reviews of environmental performance; and outreach. They welcomed the Secretary-General’s commitment to make sustainable development a key strategic priority for the OECD, and his proposals in response to the November 1997 Report of the High-Level Advisory Group on the Environment. They stressed the crucial importance of strong environmental policies in the implementation of sustainable development, and expressed the hope that other Ministers would integrate environmental concerns into their policies, whilst committing themselves to the integration of social and economic concerns into environmental policies. Ministers challenged their colleagues to work towards sustainable economic growth which enhances human and environmental, as well as economic, capital.

...In an Era of Globalisation

2. Ministers considered that economic globalisation, when combined with sound environmental and social policies, can provide a positive impetus to sustainable development. The process of globalisation provides an opportunity for all countries to be active participants in the world economy and thus has the potential to promote human well-being and environmental sustainability. In the absence of a strong environmental dimension in national policies and international co-operation, the benefits of globalisation can be undercut by the health impacts of pollution, irreversible damage to global climate system, loss of biodiversity, increased degradation and loss of agricultural lands and fisheries, and the overuse of other natural resources. Ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the overall aim of making environmental, social, investment and trade policies mutually supportive so as to achieve sustainable development.

Shared Goals

3. Ministers agree on the following goals as an expression of their commitment to action to implement sustainable development:

I - To promote strong national policies and effective regulatory structures on the protection of the natural environment and human health.

II - To promote an integrated policy approach which encourages coherence among economic, environmental and social policies, by:

a) promoting sustainable consumption and production patterns, through regulatory, economic, and social instruments, especially education and information, whilst giving particular attention to the global dimensions;

b) promoting other innovative approaches, such as eco-efficiency, aiming to achieve substantial improvements in resource productivity, for example by a factor of 4 and eventually of 10;

c) ensuring that prices of natural resources as far as possible reflect the true environmental and social costs of production, consumption and scarcity, in particular by gradually phasing-out environmentally damaging subsidies and tax breaks, and, as far as possible, by the "greening" of tax systems, through integrating environmental concerns into their design;

d) associating Ministerial colleagues in other key policy sectors, such as transport, energy, industry, trade, tourism, agriculture, fisheries and freshwater management, in integrating the environmental dimension into sectoral policies;

e) showing leadership by improving the environmental performance of governments’ own operations, procurement and investment policies, and decision-making processes.

III. To strengthen international co-operation in meeting global and regional environmental commitments by:

a) giving a high priority to ratifying, implementing and establishing the incentives which ensure effective compliance with, and seeking synergies among, global and regional environmental conventions;

b) giving particular priority to the ratification and implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, in a way that:

- minimises the socio-economic costs in developed and developing countries alike, and paves the way for further progress in limiting global emissions, by adopting effective national response policies and measures, and improving co-operation, with developing countries and with countries in transition to a market economy; and,

- recognises that all OECD countries, on the basis of their differentiated responsibilities, need to play their part in combating climate change by implementing national strategies, including measures such as clear targets and effective regulatory and economic measures;

c) reaffirming their commitment to establish effective management systems for hazardous chemicals, inter alia through the signature, ratification and early implementation of the Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (PIC), and the phasing out of certain Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) through a global POPs convention, for which negotiations have been initiated by UNEP;

d) actively engaging non-Member countries in dialogue, shared analysis and the development of strategies for implementing sustainable development, building, for instance, on the approach developed in the Environmental Action Programme for Central and Eastern Europe;

e) reaffirming the commitments made at UNGASS, and recognising the need to increase the overall volume of development assistance and calling for the mobilisation of private and public, domestic and external financial resources to enhance environmental investments, capacity building and the diffusion of environmentally-sound technology;

f) promoting efforts to ensure that environmental concerns are effectively integrated into the multilateral trading system, and recognising, where they are necessary, the use of trade measures taken in the framework of Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) as an important policy tool;

g) promoting efforts to ensure that environmental concerns are effectively integrated into the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in a way that supports sustainable development, and so as not to limit the capacity to make and implement national and international environmental policies;

h) furthering harmonisation efforts among OECD countries on the implementation of OECD instruments on the Mutual Acceptance of Data, the management of chemicals and pesticides, the management of recyclable materials, and the development of testing and assessment methods for endocrine disrupters; and furthering co-operation on pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTRs), the development of inherently safer chemicals, and on the assessment of products derived through modern biotechnology;

i) giving particular focus to key cross-sectoral issues and the strategic directions for environmentally sustainable transport developed at the OECD Vancouver Conference and the UN Economic Commission for Europe’s November 1997 Conference on Transport and the Environment in Vienna;

IV. To strongly support participation, transparency, information and accountability in environmental policy-making by public authorities at all levels, inter alia, by:

a) supporting or facilitating participation of key stakeholders in civil society in the development, implementation and monitoring of environmental policies, and in particular to engage in an intensive dialogue with the business community, trade unions and environmental citizens’ organisations on the future of environmental policy-making in a globalising economy;

b) ensuring that, within the context of national law, and recognising the importance of protecting confidential business information, the public has ready access to environmental data and that citizens and organisations whose interests are affected have the ability, through administrative or judicial procedures, to challenge acts or omissions by private persons and public authorities which contravene provisions of national law relating to the environment;

c) monitoring and adoption of environmental accounting, leading to better qualitative and quantitative environmental reporting by public authorities and private firms, on a voluntary basis, which is essential for a better democratic debate on environmental concerns;

d) taking note of the forthcoming UN/ECE Resolution on the adoption of the Convention on Access to Environmental Information and Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making and Access to Justice, at the Ministerial Conference in Aarhus, Denmark, in June 1998;

e) implementing the principles set out in the OECD Council Recommendation on Environmental Information, which Ministers endorsed.

A Role for OECD

4. Ministers stressed the importance of maintaining a strong environmental component as an integral part of the new OECD vision for sustainable development. In pursuit of their shared goals, and recognising the new challenges and opportunities which globalisation poses for governments and the international community, Ministers highlighted the following priority areas for OECD work which, recognising the Organisation’s priorities and resource constraints, they recommended be reflected in the overall programme of work determined by the OECD Council:

a) deepen the analysis of the impact on the environment of globalisation, especially of trade and investment by:

- deepening work on integrating environmental concerns into key economic sectors, such as agriculture and fisheries, transport, energy, and into trade, investment and fiscal policy, at Secretariat level and through co-operative arrangements among OECD committees;

- further analysing the potential impacts of the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment on the capacity to implement environmental policies and Multilateral Environmental Agreements, and urge OECD to encourage dialogue and find concrete means of promoting closer co-operation between EPOC and the MAI Negotiating Group;

- strengthening the environmental component of the OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises;

- continuing the efforts in the Export Credits and Credit Guarantees Group to develop approaches for taking environmental factors into account when providing official export credit support;

- expanding the co-operative testing and conducting of safety assessments of high production volume chemicals in an efficient way; and promoting the management of risks identified in these assessments, giving high priority to methods to detect endocrine disrupting effects;

b) support national and international efforts to implement the Kyoto Protocol, including through the Annex I Expert Group and the Climate Technology Initiative (CTI), by examining the economic, social and environmental implications of climate response strategies, policies, measures, and flexibility mechanisms;

c) analyse further the economic and environmental implications of the implementation of the Convention on Biodiversity, as well as other multilateral environmental conventions, inter alia the Convention to Combat Desertification;

d) develop effective policy approaches for improving resource efficiency;

e) further develop and adopt a comprehensive set of robust indicators to measure progress towards sustainable development, in concert with sustainable development indicator initiatives of other international agencies, to be used in country reviews and outlook reports, including in the second cycle of environmental performance reviews;

f) continue to study the feasibility of introducing regulatory or fiscal measures in high growth transport sectors, such as aviation, in collaboration with ICAO and other competent bodies;

g) further develop work on environmentally sustainable transport (EST), including guidelines for implementing EST principles, and paying particular attention to the recommendations of the Vienna Declaration on Transport and the Environment.

A Strategy for 2000 and Beyond

5. Ministers invited the OECD to develop a new environmental strategy for the next decade and agreed to review it when they meet in 2001 to prepare for the "Earth Summit +10" in 2002. The Strategy should help to ensure excellence in the OECD’s contribution to the implementation of sustainable development in the next century.