ECOLOGICAL
As I have attempted to show prior hereto, there have been numerous occasions when representatives from a number of nations have met together for constructive purposes. These conferences, and subsequent joint efforts which have sprung from many of these meetings, demonstrate the fact that joint--and, ideally, universal--efforts can accomplish definite good. A substantial number of additional joint determinations and resultant joint actions have concerned our atmosphere and related ecological concerns.
As far back as 1966, President Lyndon Johnson called for a meeting of representatives from approximately one hundred nations for the purpose of discussing, and hopefully finding solutions for, the then-current worldwide crisis caused by water shortages.
Six years later, in 1972, another hundred nation meeting was held under the auspices of the United Nations. It met in Stockholm, and bore a theme entitled "Only One Earth." This expression of concern by so many countries located in so many regions of the world for preservation and improvement of the human environment served to greatly increase international awareness regarding environmental issues.
This and other U.N.-sponsored conferences are open to all nations. They deal with subjects that affect all the world's peoples, such as food, population, and ecology; and constitute an area of positive and worthwhile accomplishment on the part of the organization. A major example is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, sponsored by several U.N. agencies, which coordinates the work of hundreds of scientists studying global changes of various sorts.
In 1979, a treaty entitled the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution was executed, under U.N. sponsorship, by representatives from thirty three European and North American countries. It comprised a commitment on the part of the signatory nations to promote domestic legislation that would encourage industries within their respective jurisdictions to resort to more appropriate technology in an overall effort to reduce air pollution.
The condition of the earth's atmosphere became a particularly critical concern when it was randomly discovered that one or more openings were beginning to form in the ozone layer that surrounds our planet, having a potential for serious ecological consequences. An abundance of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions (attributable in part to the use of aerosol cans and refrigerators) was identified as the cause. Of course, atmospheric threats such as this respect no political boundarylines; and so agreements to reduce and phase out these dangerous substances ought to be, and to an extent were, willingly entered by the international community.
As a follow-up, it should be noted that in 1984, health ministers from ten nations met in Canada and agreed to reduce sulfur-dioxide emissions by thirty percent during the following ten years. In addition, numerous other countries were prevailed upon to commit to a similar reduction. All who thus agreed were dubbed members of the "Thirty Percent Club." And in 1987, at a conference attended by three hundred scientists from forty eight nations, a decree known as the "Montreal Protocol," subsequently endorsed by 146 of the world's nations, called for a twenty percent reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions, to be achieved by the year 2005. Further, in 1989, the European Community vowed a separate and further ban on chlorofluorocarbons.
In 1992, an instrument known as the Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed at an "Earth Summit" held at Rio de Janeiro, attended by leaders of 106 nations. By its terms, industrial nations were required to formulate policies which would lead to a reduction in harmful emissions by the end of the twentieth century. At the same conference, 160 nations signed a Convention on Biological Diversity, agreeing to safeguard and protect the various animal and plant species within their respective regions.
A meeting was held in Paris in 1994 to deal with another problem that knows no boundaries: land degradation (i.e., the turning of useful lands into desert as a result of overgrazing, overcropping, poor irrigation practices, and deforestation). In October of that year, a convention was signed by delegates from eighty seven countries, agreeing to institute efforts to curb such harmful practices.
During the same year (1994), an International Conference on Population and Development was held in Cairo. At this meeting, more than 160 countries approved a World Population Plan of Action, having as a parameter a limitation of the human population to a sum below 9.8 billion by 2050 (a figure expected to be vastly exceeded by said year, if things go on without change).
The list of these international accomplishments goes on and on. By 1974 there were 173 international treaties in existence that dealt with environmental subjects.
In 1997, a further international convention known as the Kyoto Protocol was instituted. It set 2012 as a target datefor thirty nine industrial nations to further significantyly reduce their production of greenhouse gas emissions. Then, in 2001 (notwithstanding the fact that the U.S. had in the meantime opted out of it), 178 additional nations agreed to put this vital Protocol into effect.
In some respects, subsequent news and progress reports indicate that a number, and perhaps many, of these goals have not been achieved--and that perhaps some conditions have in fact worsened. But such compacts on the part of so many nations regarding subjects pertaining to the environment demonstrates the encouraging likelihood that worldwide agreejment and cooperation is both worthwhile as well as possible. This seems particularly obvious in instances where a common danger or enemy is before us. Hopefully we can be made to realize that by agreeing to international unity regarding every subject and activity that requires it, every potential danger within our society and our world might be most effectively dealt with.
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