Minister of the Environment Thorbjørn Berntsen

"Sustainable Resource Management
- where do we stand and where we must go"

3rd Environment Northern Seas - International conference and exhibition, Stavanger, Norway, 22 August 1995

---

Contents

Introduction
Main challenges towards sustainable development
Sustainable development
Oslo Roundtable Conference and CSDs Ministerial Session
Sustainable Consumption as a National Agenda
GRIP Centre - The Foundation for Sustainable Production and Consumption
Network for transferring environmental competence
The Norwegian Green Tax Commission
Integration of environmental aspects into all policy areas
Climate policy and major elements in protection of the Northern Seas

---

Introduction

Your Royal Highness, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen; first of all I would like to say that it is indeed a privilege for me to make this opening address to the Third Environment Northern Seas Conference. This is the third time I have the pleasure of being here, and I am impressed by the diversity of the programme, the eminent speakers and the variety of participants from all over the world that are gathered here. It confirms the position this conference has gained both nationally and internationally.

I also think the ENS conference plays an important role as an example of creative and successful co-operation between industry, the NGO’s, research, authorities and the public at large. Better communication and understanding between each sectors of the society is a necessary basis in our strive for a healthy environment.

I am especially pleased with the main theme you have chosen for this conference; sustainable resource management is in my opinion the only possible optimistic vision for the future.

Main challenges towards sustainable development

So, what are the main environmental problems in the world today? To be concrete:

• We are disturbing the CO2-balance in the atmosphere by the use of fossil fuels,
• we are destroying the ozone-layer through the use of man-made chemical substances,
• we emit sulphur into the atmosphere which results in acid rain,
• our emissions of hazardous substances are being accumulated in nature,
• the biological diversity is being reduced,
• our nuclear activity is being continued with unknown consequences for thousands of years to come,
• forests are being cut down resulting in erosion and growing deserts,
• our dumping of toxic waste is locally ruining the basis of existents for plants, animals and humans.

In addition we have a widespread poverty and a desperate need for development in many countries, and an unjust distribution of income and consumption between the rich and the poor part of the world. It is also a fact that the worlds population is growing faster than ever....

The key to solve many of these problems is to be found in the industrialised and rich countries. We have a special responsibility for changing our own production and consumption patterns, and to obtain a consumption level within the limits of nature. At the same time we must assist the developing countries in making their agenda on environmentally sound and sustainable development.

Sustainable development

Sustainable consumption includes a number of key issues such as meeting fundamental human needs, greater resource and energy efficiency, greater use of renewable energy sources, sound management of renewable resources and improvement of environmental quality as an important consideration throughout the life cycle of a product.

Moreover, sustainable development is concerned with both the structure and the distribution of production and consumption. And we must look at not only what and how we produce and consume, but also how much.

If we can integrate these elements into our overall policies, we can hope to provide a better quality of life for people both today and tomorrow, and at the same time help to reduce the risk of ecological crisis. But we will not succeed without fundamental changes in our society and lifestyle.

Oslo Roundtable Conference and CSDs Ministerial Session

The environmental and poverty problems were the basis for the international process which started with the Brundtland report in 1987. In 1992 the Rio-conference was arranged. Never before in history had so many state leaders been gathered in one place. Today, the questions regarding sustainable production and consumption are on the political agenda through annual meetings in the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD).

In this process, Norway has taken an active and promoting role. Our goal has been to put the industrialised country’s consumption an production patterns on the international agenda. So far this has been a success. Norway’s latest contribution was the Oslo Ministerial Roundtable on Sustainable Production and Consumption in February this year. The Oslo Roundtable resulted in a proposal for a work-program for the CSD. The latest CSD-session in April recommends all governments to implement the work program from the Oslo Roundtable, and to report back the results to CSD. Some of the conclusions in the work program are as follows:

• Sustainable production and consumption requires long term structural changes in our economy and our life style.
• The governments of the world have the main responsibility in setting sustainable conditions for the development of the society. A green tax reform is such an important initiative. Another is the introduction of environmental criteria in public purchasing schemes.
• Strengthened international co-operation is essential for achieving global improvements.
• Industry must take their part of the responsibility - in the future all goods and services must be produced, used and disposed of within the limits of nature.
• People themselves must contribute actively. A wide range of facilities for sustainable behaviour must therefore be made available.

It is our conviction that we have to accelerate the implementation in practical terms of the action plan from Agenda 21. And we will continue our efforts towards the SCD. Progress is to be reviewed in 1997, and both national governments and the UN-system must be able to present concrete results.

Sustainable Consumption as a National Agenda

In the Ministry of Environment we are now preparing an action plan on sustainable production and consumption. This plan is using ideas from the work plan which was prepared by the Oslo Roundtable. I will take this opportunity to mention three important and new action points;

• the establishment of the foundation GRIP Centre,
• the establishment of a network for transferring environmental competence to Eastern Europe, Russia and developing countries
• and the Green Tax Commission.

GRIP Centre - The Foundation for Sustainable Production and Consumption

This summer the so-called GRIP Centre - a Norwegian Foundation for Sustainable Production and Consumption was established. The GRIP Centre is an important part of the Ministry of Environments efforts within the area of sustainable production and consumption.

The GRIP Centre will contribute to a sustainable development in Norwegian private and public enterprises, through combining environmental knowledge and knowledge of markets and organisations. The foundation will develop and distribute methods for the enterprises which can be used to increase their value added and reduce their resource consumption and their environmental load.

The GRIP Centre will as a start focus especially on the following branches and functions: The building industry, the financial sector, the tourism industry, the trade in goods, the advertising business, the municipality sector and on communication. In addition the foundation will work on a program for green public purchasing.

Network for transferring environmental competence

I receive many inquiries from countries wishing to have co-operation within the environmental area and help to develop their own environmental administration. The need for transferring environmental competence from industrial countries to developing countries is also highlighted in the Brundtland report as well as in Agenda 21.

The Ministry of Environment is now establishing a network of competence in Norway which will be able to serve incoming inquires. The network consists primarily of institutions which have environmental issues as their main occupation.

If Norwegian environmental competence shall be able to help, we have to offer a wide range of services. An important task will be to put together complete «packages» which consist of various environmental competence, for instance development of legal framework, institution building and environmental surveillance. The job of making the packages is planned to be done by a small co-ordinating unit. This unit will primarily have a broker function. This means that it will act as an intermediary between the need which is identified and relevant institutions in the network.

Our goal is to have the network established before the end of this year.

The Norwegian Green Tax Commission

When the pollution problems entered the political agenda, the main focus was on discharges from large and clearly defined sources. As time went on the focus turned to environmental problems interwoven with production and consumption patterns. The increasing interface between environmental problems and production and consumption patterns, implies that it has been more complicated to design appropriate environmental instruments.

Environmental instruments are stimulating environmental friendly production and consumption, while de-stimulating less environmental friendly production and consumption. In Norway, both environment and employment are given high priority. The «Green Tax Commission» has been set up to consider to change the present mix of environmental and employment taxes and charges. The Commission will present its work in 1996.

Integration of environmental aspects into all policy areas

A condition for sustainable development is also an integration of environmental targets into policies in all sectors at central, regional and local level, and in the private sector. In Norway the different ministries are responsible for environmental consequences in their sectors. Environmental policy is thus not a task for the Ministry of the Environment alone. I am especially pleased to notice that this is reflected in the different conference seminars, and I am sure that my colleagues from the Government will enlighten you on the sectorial integration of environmental issues.

I am also looking forward to here from the next speaker, Mr. Percy Barnevik how the industry will meet these new challenges.

Climate policy and major elements in protection of the Northern Seas

I have highlighted only a few elements of the Norwegian Government’s effort to follow up the recommendations of the Oslo Roundtable Conference. Obviously, all parts of the environmental policy are essential to achieve sustainable development.

Central is of course our work to mitigate climate change. The national goal of stabilising CO2 emissions at the 1989 level by the year 2000 will continue to be the basis for the Government’s climate policy. This summer the Government submitted a Report to the Storting on Norwegian policy to mitigate climate change and reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides. The report stresses the need for international co-operation, and that Norway is prepared to take its share of new international commitments.

I will also spend a few words on what was the initial theme of ENS - the protection of the Northern Seas, a theme which is still at the heart of the ENS conferences.

The Norwegian Prime minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland, urged us in her opening speech at the first ENS conference to make the North Sea a laboratory for efforts to achieve environmental excellence. This is a very ambitious goal and still very relevant. I believe we have the necessary instruments to be able to work towards such a goal. The new OSPAR and Helsinki conventions are important means in this struggle. Progress has been made step by step for more than 20 years under the now updated legal framework of these conventions.

Equally important is the fruitful co-operation between the North Sea States that has taken place since the first North Sea conference in Bremen in 1984.

In June this year I had the pleasure of participating at the Fourth North Sea Conference in Esbjerg in Denmark. In my opinion we made important progress to ensure continued action and new initiatives regarding the protection of the North Sea, focusing more and more on resource management issues.

A "Progress Report", an assesment of the achievements to date, was presented at the conference. Although, there were different levels of achievements between the different countries, the overall conclusion was that the North Sea Conferences had played a very important role in setting targets and measures for the protection of this marine area. An interesting conclusion was that the political participation itself had given a flexible and highly action-oriented process. The conferences set a standard for similar international co-operation in other regional seas.

If you allow me to boast a little, I can tell you that Norway was among the countries that was credited with the best results in the Progress Report. I would like to share this with you, because without contributions from science, industry, agriculture, fisheries, municipalities and NGO’s we would have seen little results.

On the other hand I will underline that we cannot rest on earlier success. Both the «Progress Report» and the North Sea Quality Status Report from 1993 emphasised the need for continued action and new political commitments.

New problems are also arising; - reports of harmful substances with hormonlike effects has to be taken seriously. I am very concerned about the spreading of hazardous substances, especially from diffuse sources that is difficult to detect and control. It was therefore an important step forward that we in the Esbjerg declaration were able to agree on a target of their elimination within one generation, or more precisely, 25 years.

I do also share the concern, expressed by other ministers, about the large number of offshore installations in the North Sea that will be decommissioned in the near future. As you probably are aware of , this was one of the questions that got the most attention at the conference, even if I do not think these installations represents a main threat to North Sea environment. I can assure you that Norway, will find solutions to these problems that can be fully acceptable from an environmental point of view.

The abovementioned factors has made me convinced that there is a need to continue the North Sea co-operation. The fact that Norway is a so called downstream country, a receiver of pollution from other countries, makes us strongly committed to this joint work. It was therefore a pleasure for me in Esbjerg to invite my North Sea colleagues to a Fifth North Sea conference in Norway between the year 2000 and 2002. We will also arrange an intermediate ministerial meeting on the integration of fisheries and environmental issues in Norway in 1996.

This gives us an unique chance, as well as a great challenge, to continue our work to secure an environmentally sound management of the North Sea. I therefore hope that all of you here will contribute to this work, and I believe that the next ENS-conferences can supply us with valuable assistance in the years to come.

Marine pollution from landbased sources are also part of the follow-up action from agenda 21. UNEP has initiated a global process that will lead to a conference in Washington D.C in October this year. The main goal is to reach agreement on a global action plan for the protection of the marine environment from pollution from landbased sources.

The Nordic countries have accordingly made a proposal aiming at a global ban of the must dangerous substances such as PCB and DDT. This proposal has gained widespread support and I am looking forward to see the final results from the Washington-conference. I think it is an important step forward that these issues have been put on the agenda globally, and we will support a global initiative to reduce or eliminate pollution from hazardous substances.

Arctic issues constitute an important part of the ENS-program. I look very much forward to Alexey V. Yablokov’s introduction of the Russian environmental priorities in the Northern region. The co-operation with Russia is of crucial importance to us, and we strongly believe in an open dialogue with our neighbours.

A central part of this dialogue is the so-called Rovaniemi process that started in Rovaniemi in 1991, with the adoption of «Arctic Environmental Protection strategy» (AEPS). A co-ordinated process between the arctic countries is essential to be able to protect this special and vulnerable part of our environment.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of opening the «Second International Conference on Environmental Radioactivity in the Arctic». Protection of the environment and future generations calls for continued efforts to curb radioactive pollution in the northern ocean areas.

I have now mentioned some of the items that will be on the agenda the following days, but there are others, and I am sure that all of you will have some interesting and exiting days here in Stavanger.

I am sure that ENS-95 will broaden our knowledge of sustainable resource management. To put it this way - to act sustainably we have to learn to think sustainably.

Good luck and thank you!

---

Lagt inn 4 september 1995 av Statens forvaltningstjeneste, ODIN-redaksjonen