Oslo Roundtable Chairman's Report
CHAIRMAN`S SUMMARY
by Thorbjørn Berntsen, Norwegian Minister of the Environment10 January 1995, Oslo, Norway
We started last year what we may call the Oslo Process for a Sustainable Earth. This is the second meeting, and we shall continue the process next year. We are committed to identifying and put into practice effective policy responses to the crucial problems confronting us all.
The Oslo Roundtable is drawing to a close. We have worked hard and we have made substantial progress. We started last spring with governments, consumer- and environmental organizations, business and labour examining their own aims and practices.
The draft that we brought into our meeting had 24 pages, our final document has 35. The paper has been enriched by your efforts these three days, we received 50 pages of suggestions and 21 suggestions for illustrative windows. Some of these addressed issues that lie outside the scope of this paper. Trade, indebtedness, poverty and other cross cutting issues are also important and will be discussed in other sessions of the CSD. We have not discussed these here, since they are not part of Agenda 21 Chapter 4, but the Government of Norway will continue to take a strong position on these issues.
Making the transition to sustainable production and consumption patterns will require courage, determination and a strong political will. Our final document reflects the need to make progress. I would like to highlight the following priority areas:
- First, sustainable production and consumption will involve long-term structural change to our economies and our lifestyles. Together we must address the volumes, patterns and distribution of consumption.
- Second, governments must take responsibility for putting the necessary framework in place: ecological tax reform is essential to reduce environmental damage and stimulate employment.
- Third, governments and business should use their purchasing power to influence the overall pattern of demand for goods and services through the introduction of environmental strategies for procurement.
- Fourth, strengthened international cooperation is vital for fair and sustainable production and consumption on a global basis. We need to reverse the trend of declining aid flows, accelerate the transfer of green technologies and establish trade preferences for environmentally friendly goods and services from the developing world.
- Fifth, business must bear its full share of the responsibility for change: in future, all goods and services should be made, used and disposed of within the limits of nature.
- And finally, people themselves are a force for positive change. They need practical tools that are attractive and cheap to enable them to live sustainably. In particular, citizens have a right to know the environmental impact of the goods and services they consume.
We need indicators so that progress can be accurately assessed and the course corrected where necessary. Governments should report back regularly to the CSD on their implementation of these and other measures to change production and consumption patterns.
We must all be partners in this venture: governments, international organisations, business, labour, NGOs and academic institutions. We can all learn from each other. I have been encouraged by the commitment to action from all sectors of society that I have heard over the past three days.
Now we must take action. I will present my summary of the contributions and discussions at this Roundtable to the CSD in April. I am grateful for your support for the final document and I hope that we will agree to a strong work programme on these issues at the CSD. We should all then start to do the analysis, set the targets and take the necessary measures to make our production and consumption patterns sustainable.
Thank you for your cooperation. Have a safe journey home.