WELCOME TO WORKSHOP
Since the Geneva Convention on Long Range Transport of Air Pollutants was signed some 20 years ago, environment protection policies have evolved significantly. The local and regional consequences for air quality of domestic and industrial use of coal, and many other gross pollution problems - for example contamination of water courses - have been significantly ameliorated in western Europe, and increasingly are coming under control in the wider UNECE region. Public and government perception of environmental problems has also evolved:
- there is increasing awareness that problems are diffuse, extensive, complex and subtle, and have unpredictable long term implications;
- there is an understanding that these problems must be tackled at global and regional level;
- the Geneva Convention, the OSPAR Convention, the Framework Convention on Climate Change and other multilateral agreements have emerged as increasingly important.
The Geneva Convention has developed to recognise these changes:
- protocols cover a wider range of pollutants and their impacts;
- thanks partly to the work of the Economic Task Force, more emphasis is placed upon the economic and social consequences of measures adopted;
- there is greater recognition of the increasing costs of compliance, as "low hanging fruit" is harvested;
- the importance of developing new policy instruments, and better design of policy is accepted widely.
These changes point to the concept of sustainable development, which requires account to be taken of the environmental, economic, societal and human consequences of public policy.
Policy design for sustainable development involves greater awareness of tradeoffs between objectives, and an integrated approach to appraisal. Outcomes need to be more carefully specified, and where possible, the quantification and monetary valuation of non-marketed outcomes applied, as an integral part of policy formulation and negotiation.
This process, while it appears to be logical, indeed almost inevitable, to economists and to other specialists, elsewhere provokes some unease. Even if such notions as the Value of Statistical Life have been in routine use, notably in transport policy, over many years, we are far from being able to apply them in a routine way to the analysis and development of environment policy. Policy makers, particularly at the highest political level, need to be convinced that such valuation is both legitimate and conducive to better decisions. Apart from ensuring the scientific and economic soundness of our proposals for valuation, we must also assure:
- they carry conviction with decision makers; and
- have democratic legitimacy as part of a broadly based and transparent process of policy development.
In the context of the Geneva Convention, the work of the ETF has contributed to these aims. The successor network will carry this forward, and this Workshop, by pulling together the work of the ETF, and of many distinguished experts, scientists and economists, will contribute, not only to the continuing negotiation and development of protocols under the Convention, but much more widely to the better design of policies to deliver clean air, water and the protection of natural resources.
It is therefore for me a great pleasure to welcome the Convention Secretariat, members of national delegations and participants in the working parties of the Convention, and the many distinguished academics and other experts from various disciplines. I wish you a most successful workshop.