Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2003
MR JONATHON
PORRITT, PROFESSOR
TIMOTHY O'RIORDAN
AND MR
SCOTT GHAGAN
140. Was it your impression that the British
delegation was actually trying to push an agenda which would involve
the targets, and that their efforts were somehow overtaken by
other people's agendas in the general mêlée that
happens in these international conferences? Do you think the outcome
is not as the British delegation would have wished it to be in
terms of realistic and achievable concrete targets?
(Mr Porritt) That is certainly the conclusion
we came to as the Commission. Obviously, multiple brave faces
were put on this in the immediate post-Summit reflection, but
there was a palpable sense of disappointment about the loss of
some of the targets, particularly the renewable energy target
but others as well. As I understand it—and, again, I would
have to defer to Tim here—the feeling from those present
in Johannesburg, the commentators, the journalists and NGOs, independent
experts, was that the UK Government was working hard to get tougher
targets embedded into the plan of implementation and was certainly
on the side of the angels in terms of many of the processes that
might have resulted in something more substantive than we have
ended up with. Is that fair?
(Professor O'Riordan) I think the comment you made
from David Collins really needs a bit more elaboration. The Johannesburg
Summit was never designed to be something akin to the Rio Summit
and this was its great failing. It was never set up in preparatory
activity to lead to major conventions, to plans of action, to
important declarations of principle, to significant follow through.
So it was doomed in some—
Chairman
141. I am sorry to interrupt you. Was that because
the preparations were inept or not sufficient or was it because
it was never planned that way?
(Professor O'Riordan) They were a combination
of being inept and confused and far too mismanaged by a combination
of the United Nations machinery and a lot of messing about tactics
by significant governments.
142. It was more or less bound to be disappointing
if the run-up was so poor.
(Professor O'Riordan) The preparatory conference procedures,
of which there were four, were mainly plagued by indecision and
muddle and the inability to get any kind of clearly defined agenda
up for the Johannesburg meeting. This is why Johannesburg was
such a difficult process, because there was virtually nothing
on paper at the beginning of it, yet there was a remarkable achievement
at the end. It is easy to make the remarks which Mr Collins made—and
I have to say I share them all—but the failures were even
worse at the beginning of the Johannesburg process. The South
African Government in its very clever chairing, and a number of
delegations, did manage to get something out of this particular
hat called, roughly, a rabbit, when it might otherwise hardly
have been possible in its early stages of muddle. You have to
bear in mind that this was not the equivalent of the Rio Summit,
which is a tremendous disappointment for a lot of people, that
a world event 10 years on did not manage to get the same kind
of agenda established that would really lock people into long-term
commitments around areas which are so fundamentally important.
143. It was probably rather unwise, therefore,
for Mrs Beckett to say that she was "delighted" by the
outcome. In public relations terms was that not a rather unwise
thing to say?
(Mr Porritt) I guess, Chairman, you will be familiar
with the need for politicians to turn less than successful events
and happenings into something that looks vaguely passable. My
feeling is that she perhaps overstated that, because by any standards
it was difficult to describe the outcomes as truly remarkable.
I think what she was properly saying was that it was not right
for critics, particularly some of the NGOs, to dump on the entire
process because, if nothing else, it did hold the line on some
of the Rio processes and there was a real fear in the preparatory
process that actually some of the Rio commitments were going to
be diluted and weakened, not even sustained, so I suppose that
in that regard she was seeking to say that there are positive
outcomes here on which we can build. I felt that she was perhaps
indicating this notion that we have to work now through these
coalitions of the willing. The UN processes are inherently unsatisfactory
in some regards. When you do have to get consensus views down
to the last semi-colon, it makes it incredibly difficult for countries
that are determined to move forward more purposefully to achieve
what they need from international gatherings of that kind. I think
her optimism lay more in the expressions of intent from these
"coalitions of the willing" to advance certain agendas
faster than seemed to emerge from Johannesburg itself. I think
there was legitimate optimism in that, but it has to be admitted
that that is fall-back optimism because the process itself did
not generate much to be optimistic about.
Ian Lucas
144. I am disturbed by the very negative feelings
you have about the outcome of the Summit, but I am a bit confused,
Mr Porritt, because, reading your Observer 25 August 2002
article, it starts off, "I went to the Earth Summit in Rio
de Janeiro with low expectations, and all of them were met."
That was about Rio. In the discussion that we have had today,
you are presenting the outcome of Johannesburg as being intensely
disappointing too but, on the other hand, you are presenting Rio
as being very positive. Is there a danger here of you downplaying
any positive aspects of Johannesburg, particularly as you were
the people who have to drive this forward in the public mind in
the years ahead?
(Mr Porritt) Well, there is undoubtedly
a danger. I think we are in a difficult position here. I do not
think we do anybody any favours by talking up outcomes which are
not there and I think if the Commission cannot be seen to give
a rendering of what constitutes reality as we see it, as a group
of independent experts looking on on this, if we are not able
to do that without falling back on some kind of need to put positive
spin on things, then I suspect the credibility of the Commission
will be very severely undermined.
145. You said Rio was very disappointing in
your article. That is a quote from you.
(Mr Porritt) I was an NGO activist then, of course!
146. So spin is not entirely within the control
of politicians. NGO activists do that too.
(Mr Porritt) We have got to get real about this.
147. Yes, we have. What I found most disturbing
about what Professor O'Riordan had to say in his very powerful
address that he made earlier on, was that clearly you were not
convincing the people who are in the most powerful positions of
the importance of the sustainable agenda. They are not buying
into it, are they?
(Professor O'Riordan) May I come back to you on that
in terms of what might be the British agenda in what is going
forward. Let me give you two, I think, fundamental themes which
lay behind the British approach and the whole Johannesburg notion.
I am an environmental scientist, so you will have to forgive me
for being a little bit more scientific than possibly is generally
the case. The first one is the idea of providing eco-system based
services for everything we do as underpinning the whole notion
of our economy. If you are running your systems so that you run
soil, water, bio-diversity, fish and forests down, there is no
economy in the future; there is simply destitution. It is absolutely
fundamental, therefore, that we think in this country about designing
our fundamental agriculture, our water systems, our coastal management,
our whole area of natural resources, in the context of eco-system
based services. So we put values on these things which are long-lasting
and reinforce not only their own survival but the well-being of
people attached to it. To be fair, this Government is now beginning
to tackle this. Under the Water Framework Directive there are
moves by the Environment Agency and by local authorities to start
to put this concept under the "water" heading. I think
the beginnings of this are beginning to happen and we need to
say more as a Commission and you need to say more as a Committee
to encourage this kind of thing to go forward, so we value water
as something which we steward rather than as something we just
"commodify". It is exactly the same with soil, where
committees have studied this, particularly the Royal Commission
of Environmental Pollution, and we are just beginning to start
to look at soil as a resource for long-term survivability and
so on. In the area of natural resources, these things are coming
through but they are not coherent, they are not consistent, they
are not driven by an underlying principle. The second one is the
idea of social well-being, what is sometimes referred to as social
capital. This Government is very committed to the idea of inclusion,
of rights, of responsibilities, of incorporating people into partnerships
and local government and regional government and, above all, evolved
administrations, so here is an agenda which is actually moving
forward and is very exciting. But it does not lock into sustainability;
it simply takes us down a track called social betterment. Social
betterment without a source environment, without an economic livelihood
which makes sense, especially for the underprivileged, will not
give us sustainability. We are saying as a Commission that we
need to start to bring these ideas together. There are lots of
initiatives in Government, mainly centred around the Cabinet Office
and the policy think-tanks, but no one, apart from, dare I say
it, our own Commission, is really trying to bring this into some
coherent totality. You as a Committee, I know, are very keen on
this and will take it forward. So my plea to you is that the Government
actually is doing a surprising number of things but it is not
clear that they all add up to what the Americans call "a
row of beans". If they were designed in that way, we could
make much better progress. It is not as bad as it appears, but
we need that grid of coordination and direction.
148. It is your job, is it not, as I understand
it? In fact, you have said yourself that the Commission's role
was to interpret the goings on in Johannesburg and make it real
for people back home. The reason I am so concerned about your
view is that if you are not able, if not to sell the concept of
Johannesburg then to sell the concept of sustainability, it is
difficult to know who is going to do it.
(Mr Porritt) Those are two very different things.
I think that is a really helpful distinction, because selling
Johannesburg hard as a really heavy-weight contribution to on-going
international processes would, I think, genuinely be difficult.
I am sure that Margaret Beckett will do as good a job as anyone
could this afternoon to persuade you of that, but for us that
is genuinely difficult. Trying to persuade people of the growing
importance, significance of sustainable development and the need
to put all of our policies on a more sustainable footing is actually
getting easier. It is not getting harder. I do think, when we
come on to this, Chairman, in terms of the post-Johannesburg agenda
and the climate for taking some of these issues forward, I would
like to reflect quite positively on the subtle, indirect influence
that I think Johannesburg might be having now on the UK scene.
But that is a very different thing from trying to sell Johannesburg,
which I think leaves us with a real quandary.
149. I am much happier to hear you say that
you feel there is a positive future ahead for selling sustainability.
(Mr Porritt) Indeed.
150. I do not like to use the word "selling".
(Mr Porritt) No, I know what you mean.
151. To promote sustainability.
(Mr Porritt) Exactly.
152. Why is that? Why is that easier now? Are
the general public more accessible to the idea of what it means?
(Mr Porritt) I think there are a lot of issues behind
that. From our reading, we would say that there has been a change
in the ownership in Government of the sustainable development
agenda and that that now makes it easier to begin to promote the
cross-governmental aspects of sustainable development—the
non-DEFRA bits, as it were—which, to be honest, was proving
extremely difficult last year. I think that is one change. The
second point—
153. Could you stop on that point. Change in
the ownership. Could you be more specific?
(Mr Porritt) A change in the readiness of other government
departments to see themselves as protagonists in the sustainable
development agenda, to accept that they have a very significant
part to play in making their work, their impact more sustainable—and
there is more detail there that we can come on to. As to the levels
of public acceptance, this is a difficult one to deal with, as
you know. Apart from these rather strange events that suddenly
break out in our midst, like the fuel tax protest, there is no
evidence of embedded public hostility to doing things on a more
sustainable basis; indeed, there is survey evidence, polling evidence,
going back many, many years now, of significant public sympathy
for policy directions, new programmes, new ideas, that enable
things to happen on a more sustainable basis. There is a huge
difference between the expression of theoretical sympathy and
the interpretation of that into lifestyle decisions, real changes
in how people conduct their business, manage their own workplace
and their home, change their lifestyle. The problem, I think,
for government has always been to convert latent sympathy into
hard-edged behaviour change and that is still where a lot of the
challenge lies. My feeling—and whether it is post-Johannesburg
or not is, I think, irrelevant—is that, in terms of the
challenge to take this forward, that is the area where huge amount
of very skilful political design and intervention is going to
be required.
154. I believe that after the Summit you wrote
to individual departments in government.
(Mr Porritt) Yes.
155. About the agenda for sustainability. What
sort of reaction did you get?
(Mr Porritt) I think it is fair to say that the reaction
has been mixed. We are still working our way through a series
of meetings with ministers in the different departments to which
we wrote. Some have proved harder to pin down and encourage this
more proactive engagement than others. That is, I guess, the nature
of the beast. We are disappointed that it is, with some key departments,
still genuinely very difficult for them, I think, to accept their
part in the sustainable development strategy for the UK.
Ian Lucas: Are you going to tell us who they
are?
Chairman
156. Which ones are they?
(Mr Porritt) Well . . .
Ian Lucas
157. Because we will then try to exert pressure
upon them. If we do not know why they are then . . .
(Mr Porritt) Indeed. We have had real
difficulties persuading the Department for Transport that the
sustainable development agenda and the strategy for the UK is
one which they need to address strategically. We do not get a
feeling that is happening at the moment. We have made little impact
on the Department for Education and Science as yet. We have not
really established a successful meeting with them. I have had
other meetings which have been more productive but still have
not led to the kind of position that we were pressing for. I guess,
at the very least—and I do not know whether you would accept
this as a successful indicator—for us one of the simplest
indicators we can come up with is: Has that department developed
a sustainable development strategy for itself? Is it prepared
to filter its own governmental role through a sustainable development,
an overarching development strategy, and come up with its own
approach in this area? By our analysis at the moment, the following
departments have these sustainable development strategies: DEFRA
itself; the DTI, which is currently reviewing its strategy with
a view to promulgating a new strategy; the Department of Work
and Pensions; the Ministry of Defence; and, of course, the Treasury
has a lot of documentation that does not constitute a sustainable
development strategy as such but certainly would be seen as a
significant contribution to many of the debates, particularly
around eco-taxes and so on. Under consideration is a strategy
in DCMS and the Department of Health, and there are currently
strategies being developed in the Department for Transport (we
are led to believe but we have not seen it) and the Office of
the Deputy Prime Minister. Is that a convincing picture of cross-governmental
post-Johannesburg ownership? Hmm.
158. Did you say it was better than it was a
year ago?
(Mr Porritt) Yes. Definitely. We are optimists, basically.
We are not here just to go round with long faces and wish we were
wearing sackcloth and ashes every day of our life; we look to
incremental change and my feeling now is that there are doors
that are more open to a genuine engagement in this than was the
case in summer last year. We genuinely feel that.
Chairman
159. But, as you said, Jonathon, the crunch
is whether the general feeling of goodwill towards environmental
ends is then translated into specific decisions which are filtered
through a sustainable development framework. For example, John
Prescott made a major statement last week or the week before last
about housing—these large building plans in various locations
including flood plains and so forth. Do you think that was put
through a proper environmental appraisal? Do you think it was
coordinated with Mrs Beckett and other arms of government and
given a proper sustainable development framework?
(Mr Porritt) Chairman, I have to hold
fire on that one. I am afraid this is very remiss of me, but I
was away all last week and I have not actually read this communities'
plan as yet, and I feel a bit constrained about firing off a commentary
on that at the moment. The Commissioners who are most actively
involved in that whole area of regeneration and housing have come
back to me with some instant comments, which are not overwhelmingly
bright, as in: "Whuf! this is one of the best things that
has ever happened for sustainable development in the UK,"
but they are clearly indicating that there are substantial passages
in that plan that will lead to a more sustainable set of decision-making
processes and so on. But I am very nervous at the moment, not
having read it as yet, and we have not come to a Commission view
on that. I have forgotten what the timing for this particular
inquiry is but we will be getting a collective view of the Commission
together on that and I will very happily send that to you as soon
as that is ready.
(Professor O'Riordan) Chairman, very briefly, it is
the intention of the Commission to put something like an obligation
on sustainable development into the work of government and devolved
administrations in reaching local government. The concept of an
obligation is a rather open one but it means that you have to
go through a formal process of sustainable appraisal when you
are doing policy initiatives of this kind. I think we would probably
say along the lines that this housing initiative, this sustainable
community initiative by Mr Prescott, has many aspects which are
highly commendable. But, if you really run it through something
more formal called a sustainable appraisal, there will be other
things that could still be done and should be done to strengthen
its sustainability credentials. That is the kind of thing that
we will be looking for in this period after Johannesburg, a much
more formal rooting of policies and ideas cross-government in
the form of a sustainability appraisal with certain targets built
in.
Joan Walley
|
