House of Commons Hansard Debates for 3 Jun 1992

Mr. Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South) : I have to confess that I am not sure what is happening in Kerala, but Indonesia had to have a crash family planning programme before achieving economic success. I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that development is not the best contraceptive : it is the other way round.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I do not wish to shock the House, but it is important for hon. Members to know the facts. If, before the end of the cold war, every nuclear weapon had been fired by both sides, after five years more people would have survived than were alive 20 years ago. There are more people alive now, and have been since 1890, than have ever died.

Mr. Anthony Steen (South Hams) : I can add to my hon. and learned Friend's statistics. Is he aware that all the people who died tragically in the Ethiopian famine were replaced by new births within six months?

Column 889

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : I can give my hon. Friend an even better figure. The people who died in the earthquake at Mexico City were replaced in 16 minutes.

Mr. Tony Banks : If we are all swapping statistics, I can add one. All 5 billion people now living on earth could stand up on the Isle of Wight. It would be like a crowded cocktail party and no doubt they would consume vast quantities of peanuts and crisps. That is the size of it. It is a question of where people are living and under what circumstances, rather than sheer numbers.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn : I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is miles out of date. The world's population was able to stand on the Isle of Wight provided that they were shoulder to shoulder, breast to breast and bottom to bottom in 1940, but that is not the case any more. I do not think that 5,000 million people from Newham, North-West standing back to back and bottom to bottom on the Isle of Wight would be an attractive sight, except that we could not feed them, they would all drop dead and that would be a great advantage. I can give another terrible example. If the population of Egypt increases at the present rate until the year 2000, it will require four more Aswan dams to keep it in water.

It is no good just talking about the protection of the greater green-eyed dragonfly, which I adore, or the whales and all the birds, bees, animals and periwinkles that I love around my home, and it is no good talking about the poor in Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo, when what is causing the problems is not world banks or western Governments but the fact that we are frightened to address the question of births.

I guarantee that the majority of items on the news tonight will be about somebody dying. Last Sunday, we heard that 26 people fell off moving trains and died. One tends to die if one falls off a moving train. How many thousand million passenger miles are travelled each year in this country? In fact, how many people are conceived on trains in this country?

It is all about death. Until the media point out to us--"as in my chapel I see"--that death is something natural and should not be unexpected, postponed or wrong but that births can be postponed and prevented, there is no purpose in cutting down a rain forest so that 1 million bureaucrats can descend on Rio and eat themselves stupid on the world's resources.

7.47 pm

Mr. Cynog Dafis (Ceredigion and Pembroke, North) : I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to speak. It is worthy of comment that a debate on UNCED has replaced a debate on Maastricht. There is no doubt that the issues involved in the Maastricht debate are of the heaviest consequence, but the issues involved in the debate on UNCED are vastly more important. What can be more important than the environment--the natural systems and resources that sustain life? I must emphasise the importance of human life so as to scotch the myth that green people are more concerned about creatures and animals than about people. It is the environment that sustains human life and that environment is now seriously at risk.

The summit and the Rio declaration, watered down as it is, are telling us that we have to learn that the present pattern of production and consumption--the economic

Column 890

system that we have in the world today, particularly the northern world--is unsustainable. I accept the importance of the population issue and it is regrettable that it is not being considered satisfactorily in Rio. Nevertheless, at Rio we must address ourselves to the unsustainability of our economic system and our patten of production and consumption.

Maurice Strong recently said :

"Earth Incorporated is literally in liquidation. Much of the income we are producing isn't really income at all ; it's running down our capital."

Some would call him an eco-terrorist, but he puts his view as strongly as this : we have an unsustainable ecosystem, certainly in the northern world. It will continue only at terrible cost to future generations who are not too distant and possibly at terrible cost to millions of our fellow human beings now.

The other day I read an article tucked away at the back of The Guardian. It was an analysis of the changes in weather patterns in the Indian ocean and linked them to climate change. It stated starkly :

"The next time you see pictures of starving Africans on your TV screens, it may be directly the result of the profligate use of fossil fuels in the rich world."

That was an informed article and it was talking about now, not a remote future.

The fact that the environment is the most important issue of all is increasingly being recognised by the public at large. That point has already been raised and I wish to emphasise it. Until last summer I was a school teacher and I know that there is intense awareness of environmental questions among young people and children. There is deep anxiety among them and, to be honest, stark fear. Some conceal it with cynicism. I was recently at a function organised by Friends of the Earth in Aberystwyth in my constituency. I was getting copies of the earth pledge signed. Some young people said that there was no point in signing because it was too late to save the planet anyway. Such cynicism exists alongside fear and deep anxiety.

I hope that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and hon. Members will forgive me if I draw attention to the remarkable election result that led to my taking my seat in the House. I do not wish to labour the point, but the vote of the party that I represent and my own vote doubled. There was a swing of more than 13 per cent. and we moved from fourth and fifth places to first. I take no credit for that--please do not misunderstand me. The remarkable result was an expression of a number of factors including an upsurge in Welsh national consciousness and support for the idea of a Welsh Parliament, but what really made the difference and caused such a dramatic result was the fact that I was standing on an explicitly green programme, had the word "green" on my ballot paper, made environmental sustainability a fundamental theme in the election campaign and made the Earth summit a central issue in our election literature. It was not a central issue in the election campaign in general, but it was in my constituency. People who took part in that campaign can bear witness to the enormous enthusiasm generated among people by the fact that we made that theme central and linked it to the question of Welsh democracy and to a more decentralised system of government and a more decentralised pattern of economic activity. We must remember that the public at large--I should say "people at large" because I do not like the word "public"--want the environmental crisis to be tackled. I would go as far as to say that they are now eager for

Column 891

radical policies to be implemented in order to tackle it. They want such policies introduced soon enough to minimise the dislocation and changes--many painful--that may be involved in altering the nature of our economic activity and social patterns.

I am convinced that people at large want results from UNCED. Politicians who fail to deliver adequate responses to and policies on this crisis will pay a price. When the time comes, they will pay a high price in terms of electoral support and an even higher price in terms of widespread condemnation. Bearing in mind the grave urgency of the situation, the need for and the people's wish for radical action, I find the events and utterances of the past few days depressing in the extreme. That has already been said, but I say it again.

To his credit, the Prime Minister led the way with his announcement that he would attend the Rio Earth summit. He raised expectations that there would be a radical agenda at Rio, but, having done that, he now warns that some people may be expecting too much and that some expectations are higher than can realistically be achieved. That has been the type of language used in the past few days. One cannot avoid the impression that it is a deliberate attempt to damp down expectations to such an extent that even the slightest step forward will be seen as significant progress. That will not do.

Why the change of tone? Is it because the Prime Minister has not grasped the monumental importance of radical change being initiated at Rio? Several Conservative Members--but not all, I am glad to say--pooh-poohed the idea of an environmental crisis. It is important that the Government distance themselves from that point of view. They must make it clear that they do not accept a minimisation of the seriousness of the problem. I hope that it is not true that the Prime Minister has not grasped the monumental importance of the situation. We have heard about eco-terrorists. I wonder whether hon. Members would regard Sir Crispin Tickell or Sonny Ramphal as eco-terrorists. Sonny Ramphal wrote about Rio :

"the Earth Summit must represent a point of departure in the direction of sustainable living and it must be the beginning of a more resolute stage in the process of retrieving our heritage of life on earth. Because that effort has been delayed so long, we may not be able to succeed if we let the present opportunity slip."

He is a responsible man and far from being an eco-terrorist. Does not the Prime Minister realise the monumental importance of the problem or is he prepared to sacrifice that agenda in a desperate attempt to maintain the special relationship with the United States of America? That has been denied tonight and I hope that the denials are true, but the suspicion must remain that the influence of the United States on British policy is too strong.

I challenge the Prime Minister's use of the words "realism" and "realistic" in his statements. We have heard about practicalities and the fact that we are all politicians so we understand that one can achieve only what is practicable. It is time to ask whether it is more realistic to allow disastrous climate changes, the submergence of large areas and the desertification of others. Is it more realistic to allow those things to happen than drastically to reduce CO emissions? We need to reconsider that kind of

Column 892

definition of realism, and that kind of idea of practicality. We may now be at a stage where the usual compromises of diplomacy are no longer enough. We may now have to tackle the situation thoroughly enough to meet the need.

Britain's position on the biodiversity convention has been discussed in detail, and that discussion has made it clear that the influence of the United States has been a consideration. We are told that there is concern about possible misuse of funds by irresponsible third world Governments. There is no doubt that such misuse can take place, but if that was a reason for doubt, why was that issue not addressed during the exhaustive drafting process?

On the orders of the short-term self-interest of powerful business we stand to lose for ever priceless riches in the diversity of plant and animal life. To compare those with paintings by Rembrandt minimises their importance.

The compromise that has emerged on climate change is even more disturbing than that. There is now an intention to sign the convention, but that involves only stabilisation of carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000. Let us accept that the Americans seriously intend to stabilise emissions--they are, of course, the chief culprits, producing 21 per cent. of carbon dioxide emissions from 5 per cent. of the world's population. Yet the appalling and frightening fact is that stabilisation is hopelessly inadequate. Stabilisation is already a compromise, and the possibility of having a further compromise on that is disturbing. Stabilisation is not adequate. Present levels of carbon dioxide emissions have caused the problem perceived by the great majority of responsible scientists to be critical. That is widely recognised by scientific opinion. If there is cause for debate about the details, we have only to call to mind the precautionary principle set out in the Rio declaration itself-- unless that has been watered down even further since I last saw a draft. It is present levels of emissions which are causing the crisis.

We all know that the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change said that it was necessary to bring about a 60 per cent. reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. That necessity exists alongside the need to allow an increase in emissions from some poorer countries to enable them to effect minimal development in their economies.

Greenpeace has presented to the Government proposals for a 25 per cent. reduction of emissions in Britain by the year 2000. Those proposals are practicable and feasible, involving a reduction in energy demands, measures for energy efficiency, the increased use of renewables, and so on. There is no doubt that renewables have great potential, but it is striking that the funds available for research into renewables are hopelessly inadequate.

We need a radical plan of action on a global level. That is what Agenda 21 is supposed to give us. Such a plan must be pursued with the same urgency as is brought to bear at times of military threat and war. Sonny Ramphal made an interesting comparison between the need for a strong response at a time of war and the need for a strong response now. He said that the war against environmental degradation is the only war that we can now afford. That kind of urgency must be brought to bear.

It is clear that we now need to redefine what we mean by security and threat. We need not only a radical plan of action on a global level, but a lead at EC level, and from the British Government. I commend to the Government

Column 893

the excellent list called "Agenda 21 for Scotland" produced by the Scottish National party. It provides a good basis for the kind of radical agenda necessary. I would add only one one factor, because the list omits the need for drastic reductions in armaments spending. The Brandt report, the Brundtland report and, more recently, the Club of Rome report made it clear that they regarded radical reductions in spending on armaments as necessary to tackle the environmental crisis. The Club of Rome report described the conversion of the world economy from a military to a civil basis as a necessary prerequisite.

Mr. Peter Hardy (Wentworth) : I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Gentleman's argument, but there is a real danger that as the east and the west reduce their vast armouries, there is a temptation to send the surplus and the obsolete to the third world, thus increasing third world debt. Does the hon. Gentleman therefore accept that if the armouries of the advanced nations are to be reduced, that reduction should not lead to an additional burden on the underdeveloped world?

Mr. Dafis : I could not agree more. The hon. Gentleman has made a useful addition to an understanding of the dangers of the situation. Certainly we need an adequate facility for the decommissioning of weaponry. That has implications for my constituency in west Wales, but I shall not pursue that matter now.

I conclude by repeating a call that I made in a letter to the Prime Minister and to the Leader of the House, for a whole day's debate on UNCED following the conference. It will be vital to assess the outcome and examine it according to a number of criteria. Whether the conference is a success will have all kinds of implications affecting the need for unilateral policies for Britain and the EC.

I shall suggest what such an assessment of the outcome should involve. It is important to assess UNCED not by comparison with expectations about what it could achieve--either the initial expectations or the more recent, much lower expectations--but by comparison with what is required by the state of the planet and the people. Just making a start is not sufficient now. Making a start is what we should have done in 1972 at Stockholm. Not to make sufficient progress now, and not to do so quickly, must be regarded as a failure.

8.7 pm

Sir Peter Emery (Honiton) : I can certainly agree with the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) when he says that the environment is one of the greatest problems for the future. I congratulate the Secretary of State on taking the opportunity of slipping today's debate into an open slot, so that we can deal with some of the problems of Rio. The hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North will not be surprised, however, if I do not pursue all his arguments, as I want to advance some of my own.

The Secretary of State stated with considerable force the Government's position on Rio but I was disappointed with the speech of the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who tried to suggest that Rio was already a disappointing failure--although the conference is starting only today. That was jumping to conclusions and attempting to make a failure. I would have hoped that the debate was an attempt to encourage success, not to run down what might be achieved. The hon. Gentleman went

Column 894

on to say that the Prime Minister is backing off from taking positive action. If we obtain successes at Rio--there is no assurance of that--they will be very much due to the positive action of the Prime Minister as much as to the actions of any other leading politicians and Heads of State.

The House of Commons should consider one factor most fully. During the debate, we have heard more variations in scientific evidence than we have heard for a long time. From one speech, I almost thought that an argument might be made for the Earth being flat. If there is such variation in scientific evidence, there is surely an obvious need to have a Select Committee on science and technology which could consider the problems fully. I have argued that for many years, and I know that the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) supports me fully. We should consider that need yet again.

In Rio, we are just starting with representations from more than 160 nations which are participating in UNCED--the United Nations Conference on environment and development--the conference dubbed the Earth summit. Of all the international conferences since the formation of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1946, this could be the most important. The conference is the culmination of more than two years of effort which has produced a series of conventions, agreements and statements of principle which are intended to address the environmental challenges the world faces today.

The road to Rio has not been smooth. Disagreements have arisen not only in the House, but generally on the scientific basis for action in some areas. Divisions have also occurred as a result of major differences of perception between the developed and the developing nations. I only hope that efforts will be made in Rio to iron out some of the differences, because the Earth summit is supposed to be the meeting at which the international community will set out its strategy for dealing with the world's most pressing environmental problems. All of us are concerned that that may not be the case. The purpose of my speech is to try to explain precisely what is at stake in one area and to analyse the issues concerning biodiversity and the difficulties that will arise if we do not obtain signatures to the convention.

There are two conventions to be signed : the climatic change convention and the biodiversity convention. There was originally a third convention on forest management, but the negotiations proved so difficult that, at best, a declaration of intent is all that is likely to be signed. It may outline general goals and the timetable for future conventions. I hope that the Government will do all that they can to support the advance of those negotiations because they are essential.

Three resolutions are to be negotiated. One will set out the institutional framework for monitoring the environment and holding nations accountable for their actions. It is most important that we should know what is being done and how after Rio, so I hope that the resolution is carried through. A second resolution involves measures to build the necessary scientific and technological capabilities, especially in developing nations, to deal with many of the environmental problems. We all know that such facilities exist infrequently.

The third resolution is concerned with the financial process and mechanisms to facilitate the transfer of clean technology to the poorer countries to enable them to develop economically while minimising harm to the environment. We have not discussed that much in the debate, but it is probably as important as any other aspect.

Column 895

We in the west should be able to ensure that the undeveloped world has the know-how and technology to enable it to meet some of the demands that we are trying to make of it.

The convention on biodiversity is intended to produce a plan of action to preserve the Earth's biological diversity. I do not know how many people understand that man's activities are driving thousands of plant and animal species to extinction each year. The convention will seek to arrest that trend by preserving natural ecosystems and, where necessary, protecting species in managed environments.

It is amazing, but true, that about 1,400,000 species of plants, animals and micro-organisms have been scientifically identified and named, although that represents only a small proportion of the total now believed to exist. In the 1960s, estimates of the total number of species ranged from about 3 million to about 4 million. Today, scientific advances allow that estimate to rise to between 10 million and 100 million. The main reason for the higher figures is the discovery that tropical regions harbour far more species than had been thought. Tropical forests cover only 7 per cent. of the Earth's land surface, but they contain more that half the world's species. Surveys of tropical rain forests suggest that the number of insect species alone could be as high as 30 million and discoveries elsewhere add to that total.

The very deep regions of the ocean were once thought to be almost barren. Having been to Lake Baykal in Russia, I have noticed that surveys now suggest that there could be as many as 1 million uncatalogued species there and one can see some of them in the museum at Lake Baykal. A recent survey in waters 4 km deep off Brittany revealed almost 800 species living in an area only the size of a large living room. Of those, 460 were new to science.

It is terribly important to bring the figures to the House. The scientific consensus is that, even though the number of species known to science increases all the time, the number of species on the planet is declining. The United Nations puts the number of species lost at between 15,000 and 50,000 a year, which is equivalent to between 40 and 100 a day. The number could be as high as 100,000. The majority are insects and plants, most of which have never been named, let alone studied, so it is not possible to say how their loss affects humanity in purely practical terms.

Another reason for concern for the species lost is that the natural ecosystem plays a crucial role in maintaining and regenerating the soil. The complex interactions between plants, animals, fungi and micro- organisms, help to break up the rocks and contribute to the nutrients of our soil. Insect populations have natural ecosystems and they are needed to pollinate some of our crops. They can also provide predators which help to control our pests and parasites.

The broad goals of the biodiversity treaty are to establish a common international perspective on the problems that I have tried to enumerate and to agree on the priorities for dealing with them ; to analyse the need for national and international national policy reform ; to specify how the conservation of biological resources can be better integrated with development and how biodiversity is linked to related issues ; and the promotion and further development of regional, national and thematic action plans for the conservation of biodiversity.

Column 896

According to the United Nations, the convention should not infringe the sovereignty of national states over their national resources, and that has been one of the difficulties in the negotiations. Moreover, the convention must protect the interests of the states in which the resources are located. It must also provide incentives for conservation without inhibiting growth or sustainable development. It is to be hoped that the convention will set out measures for conserving and using biological diversity itself, for the promotion of research, training, education and public awareness and for the conduct of environmental impact assessments. It should deal with methods of providing access to biological diversity, the transfer of technology for the conservation and utilisation of biolgical diversity, technical and financial co-operation with developing countries, to allow them to participate fully in the conservation of biological diversity and the formulation of appropriate national and international institutional arrangements. If those aims can be achieved, we shall have made major steps forward in the preservation of biodiversity on our planet.

There are so many things to which I could refer. I have been concerned with the subject for many months as the rapporteur of the North Atlantic Assembly responsible for dealing with the Earth summit. That is why I want to drive home today--as I tried to say to the Secretary of State--the fact that, in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats supported absolutely a major resolution, passed in Banff only 10 days ago, pressing the 16 nations of NATO to sign both conventions, thus going very much further than the Republican Administration, at that moment, were willing to admit.

One of the greatest difficulties is finance. The United Nations was asked to put costs to the admittedly vague items listed in the draft Agenda 21. The best estimate was that to build environmental concerns into sustainable development programmes would require a doubling of aid and that to finance environmental recovery would require a tripling of aid. The most recent figures produced by the United Nations Environment Programme suggest--as the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said--that the developing world would need as much as $175 billion per year to develop without adding to the damage already done to the environment. Aid to the developing world currently stands at $50 billion, so $125 billion of new money would be needed every year. Without the assistance of the Soviet Union's contributions to the United Nations, that figure will be very difficult to attain.

Nations can, and no doubt will, haggle over the amount of new money that should be made available to assist the developing world in implementing whatever goals are agreed at the Earth summit. Clearly, some new money will have to be found, but it is unrealistic for the developing world to expect that money to be made available without specific conditions being attached. Donor nations are already attaching new strings to aid to ensure that it is used effectively. They are rightly increasingly reluctant to provide aid to nations that flout human rights, that have relatively large military budgets, and where there is major mismanagement of economies.

I hope that donor nations will be similarly reluctant to provide aid unless they can be assured that it will be used properly to address the problems that it is intended to address rather than being used elsewhere.

Column 897

The general consensus would appear to be that, unless some billions of dollars of new aid are offered, the developing world will be unlikely to co-operate in formulating measures to address global environmental problems. That is one of the key issues that will have to be thrashed out in the agreement. We must realise that the underdeveloped world expects some of that new money--not all--to be found, and will not co-operate unless it is, but I think it realistic of the Government to make it absolutely clear that we cannot sign treaties whereby the recipients supply the amount of money that they think they should receive with no veto being exercisable by the nations that have to provide the funds. The commitment cannot be open ended. I do not believe that any Government of any political colour could possibly agree to such an arrangement.

Considerations of time preclude me from outlining further the problems of deforestation, the way in which barriers to trade influence the environment, the demands by the have-nots for greater technological transfer or the sovereignty rights of each nation to set out its own environmental priorities. The Prime Minister has made it clear above all else that he is massively concerned that Rio 92 should produce agreements-- agreements that will not only be welcomed but will set out to save many aspects of the Earth for generations still unborn.

8.27 pm

Mr. John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) : We are all in favour of saving the environment in general. The problem is whether we are in favour of saving the environment in specific cases and of making specific decisions. The fate of the world depends not on the general statements that we make but on specific actions that we take in specific cases.

Last Sunday my family and I walked up the River Itchen valley in Hampshire. It was a gloriously hot and sunny day, a perfect day on which to walk through the water meadows--many acres of land designated as a site of special scientific interest--by one of Hampshire's chalk streams. I walked up on to the downland, and looked back over the River Itchen valley, a heat haze rising above it. In the far distance, I could see the most prominent buildings in my constituency. It was absolutely beautiful.

Why was I standing on the top of Twyford down that day? If the Government have their way, there will soon be a six-lane motorway in a huge chalk cutting 100 ft below where I stood and the excavated chalk will be dumped across the SSSI. The waterway will be ruined and my family and I will never have the chance to go there again. That road is to be built in defiance of European law to which the Government have signed up. General statements about the environment are fine but, if that is the way in which the Government treat laws that they have already signed, one can only worry about the seriousness with which they will treat any treaties that they sign in Rio. I hope that I am wrong, but the signs are not good.

A number of hon. Members have mentioned the importance of trade to developing countries. In his opening speech, the Secretary of State said that trade would be much discussed in Rio. I want to know what the Government will be saying in those discussions about global trade. Hon. Members on both sides of the House are right to say that, in terms of its scale, of the resources involved and of the money that it can bring to most developing countries, trade is more important than aid.

Column 898

Over the past 10 years many countries have been forced or encouraged by the International Monetary Fund and the World bank to develop more open, more market-oriented and more liberal trading policies and to divert their own domestic resources from domestic production to export production. If we place such emphasis on trade for the developing world, we must ask whether that trade is being carried out in a way that is contributing to sustainable development or whether it is actually undermining sustainable development. I do not believe that that question has been properly addressed in the UNCED process or in the current GATT talks. The trading system that is evolving is not promoting sustainable development. Instead, it threatens to undermine it in several key ways. One of the most fundamental underpinnings of sustainable development is that the full costs of producing goods and trading them, including the environmental costs and the so-called externalities, is taken fully into account in the price of those goods. The current philosophy in GATT, which is sadly reflected in the UNCED principles which have been published, rules that out.

The GATT philosophy states explicitly that the environmental conditions under which a product is produced must not influence how it is traded in the world market. Put simply, if country A is a rich country with clean environmental laws and country B is a poor country with weak environmental laws, a product produced at a much lower cost in country B must be freely traded in country A. That will lead to a shift in production from countries with high ecological standards of production to countries with weak ecological standards of production. That position will be exploited within the trading system. Very often it will not be a matter of separate companies operating in different countries. Instead there will be subsidiaries of the same trans-national companies, or companies controlled by licensing arrangements with trans-national companies, exploiting the fact that they can move production to the areas where it is cheapest to pollute and where there are the lowest safety standards.

If hon. Members doubt that prediction, they need only consider the ecological devastation in the border zone of Mexico where many American trans-national companies have located over the past 15 years to exploit the low environmental standards there. Those low environmental standards are now inevitably poisoning people in the United States. We should learn a lesson from that.

Under the new trading system there will be pressure to lower our own environmental standards. Our communities and trade unions will be told by managements that other countries are producing to lower standards and we should not put pressure on for such high pollution and health and safety standards in this country if we want to compete in the global market.

In case hon. Members think that this is scaremongering, a recent document on trade and the environment produced by GATT states : "It is possible that trade liberalisation could worsen particular environmental problems in the absence of appropriate domestic environmental policies. Conceivably, an expansion of trade could produce negative environmental effects so large that they outweigh the conventional benefits from open markets resulting in an overall decline in national welfare."

That point is made by GATT, not by one of the environmental non- governmental organisations. GATT recognises the dangers. The GATT report continues :

Column 899

"This is only possible if a country lacks a domestic environmental policy that reflects its environmental values and priorities." The problem is that there is no institution in the world trading system or in the multilateral system, like the Bretton Woods system, which is charged with the responsibility for enabling developing countries to develop appropriate environmental values and policies. Nor is there an institution charged specifically with the responsibility of ensuring that developing countries have sufficient resources to put those domestic policies into practice. So long as no global institution exists with that role, the trading system will operate in the way that I have predicted.

The international trading system also represents a danger to the environment in respect of current international pressures to harmonise standards. Companies and countries are beginning to argue that northern countries which want eco-labelling of products so that consumers know what they are buying and how it was produced are providing an unfair technical barrier to trade for developing countries that would like to sell in our markets. Consumers may not be able to have full knowledge about what they are buying because GATT holds that up as a technical barrier to trade.

Trans-national companies are arguing that a high standard in respect of the level of pesticide residues in our food is another barrier to trade. They argue that we should harmonise downwards to the standards of the Codex Alimentaire. Those practices are not in place yet, but that is the way in which the trading system is evolving. They are real dangers.

None of us yet knows whether international treaties like CITES--the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species which include trade provisions, will still be held to be legal under the terms of the Uruguay round--if that is completed. There has yet to be an explicit statement about that.

I recognise that the issue is complex. I do not side with those who want to take advantage of eco-protectionism. There is a grave danger of countries like the United States of America using environmental arguments simply to exclude competitive exports from third-world countries. I have no illusions that we will change the policies of third-world countries by refusing to import their goods. We need a balance. We must construct a trading system which is not obsessively free market but which is none the less open, equitable and committed to sustainable development.

In the debates on trade that must take place in Rio, I hope that the Government will press for the following. There should be an unequivocal statement that environmental protection and sustainable development are superior objectives to the promotion of trade itself. Let us have increased trade, but only where it promotes sustainable development. Let us not make it an objective in its own right. That is the role that GATT has played for the past 40 years : it has considered it an end and not a means.

There must be an unambiguous statement from Rio, from UNCED, that international treaties which include a trade element like CITES, the Basle convention and the Montreal protocol will be superior to the Uruguay round provisions on trade where there is a conflict.

Column 900

There should be a call to entrench the precautionary principle and the "polluter pays" principle in the GATT discussions. We must also ensure that international standards, for example, on pesticide residues in foods become a floor and not a ceiling for the standards that we want. We must try to evolve a system under which a country with low environmental standards can be accused of using that as an unfair subsidy just as the other unfair subsidies in trade are identified and tackled. We must recognise that it will be more difficult for developing countries to meet those standards. We must therefore ensure that they receive technical and financial assistance.

In particular, I would like to see an institutional arrangement developed that could assist developing countries, and identify their needs and arbitrate where trade policies conflict with environmental policies. There is currently a choice between a new institution and incorporating that concept clearly within the proposed Multilateral Trading Organisation. However, that function must exist somewhere in the international system because it does not exist at the moment. The Government should press for the adoption of a clear code of conduct for trans-national companies which would prevent them from shifting production to the dirtiest countries in the world and selling their products back to the richest.

Finally, we should ensure that our policies in the north do not push developing countries into unsustainable production, for example, through quite unnecessary levels of protectionism on industrialised goods or by dumping our food surpluses on them and forcing them into other forms of production and activities which are less ecologically sustainable.

I hope that trade is a central issue in Rio. However, I hope that the Government do not go there simply with ideological free-market objectives. Instead, they should have a balance of measures to maintain an open trading system and one which genuinely contributes to sustainable development.

8.39 pm

Mr. Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South) : I am pleased to follow that constructive speech by the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Denham). His remarks on GATT could well have come from the Conservative Benches rather than from the Opposition, although I confess that I am not sure whether I follow the logic of the argument that moving corporate locations to poor areas is a bad idea, as it would help development in such areas.

The hon. Member for Itchen mentioned Twyford down, which I know for personal reasons. One of the great mysteries to me is why the present dual carriageway around Winchester has not been upgraded, rather than taking away half the hillside.

One reason for having this debate before the Earth summit began is that it would have allowed us to say what was missing from the agenda at Rio. A debate after the conference would allow us to say what had been left out. I am not sure which way we are going by having a debate during the conference. However, it is constructive for us to speak on the subject.

I welcome the Government's approach to the Rio summit and agree with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir. P.

Column 901

Emery), who said that it was important for us to get a result out of the conference, rather than leave matters inconclusive or unsettled.

The great forgotten issue at Rio is the impact of world population growth on the environment. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Sir N. Fairbairn) made his point well when he said that the tremendous population growth--currently estimated at 97 million a year--was having a significant impact on the environment. Population growth has doubled since the war, and it is projected to double again by the middle of the 21st century unless something is done about it now.

We have to ask ourselves whether that is a problem--does population growth affect the environment? I have no doubt that it is a cause of environmental decline. We see the evidence all over the place. Population growth leads to deforestation in the third world, as people look for fuel simply to heat their houses and cook their food. Logging has been mentioned several times.

Mr. Jimmy Dunnachie (Glasgow, Pollok) : It is big business.

Mr. Ottaway : I am sorry, but I did not hear the hon. Gentleman's remark.

Logging is carried out in the third world for commercial exploitation and to earn hard currency for third world countries. As my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester) pointed out, desertification is a consequence of deforestation. All over Africa, crops are failing and species are becoming extinct.

All those issues are on Agenda 21 at the summit, yet their root cause-- population growth--has not been considered, and I regret that. It affects not merely the local environment but the ozone layer. China, which has the fastest growing and largest population in the world, is estimated to be pumping 17 million tonnes of sulphur a year into the environment and the ozone layer from its coal-fired power stations.

Much of the damage is caused by world poverty, because there is no alternative fuel for the domestic purposes to which I referred. Population growth is causing poverty because it is a vicious circle. If the population grows by 3 per cent., the infrastructure must also grow by 3 per cent. and 3 per cent. more schools and jobs must be provided. That would even be a challenge to a developed nation, let alone one in the undeveloped world.

If population is a problem, do we care? Should we concern ourselves about the fact that the population explosion is having so much impact? There is no doubt that there is widespread concern. That view has been expressed by both Prince Charles and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who pointed out that population growth is a cause of world poverty and of environmental decline.

I distance myself from the Archbishop of Canterbury's criticism of the Roman Catholic Church. To be fair, that Church supports family planning. The method that it advocates is outdated, and is perhaps not effective, but it supports the principle.

Next Section

Home Page