Environmental Report 2000 of the German Council of Environmental Advisors
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Environmental Report 2000 of the German Council of Environmental Advisors “Beginning the Next Millenium” - Summary - February 2000 1 The German Council of Environmental Advisors (Environmental Council) Council members (February 2000): Prof. Dr. jur. Eckard Rehbinder, Frankfurt (Chairman) Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Herbert Sukopp, Berlin (Deputy Chairman) Prof. Dr. med. Heidrun Behrendt, München Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Hans-Jürgen Ewers, Berlin Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Reinhard Franz Hüttl, Cottbus Prof. Dr. phil. Martin Jänicke, Berlin Prof. Dr.-Ing. Eberhard Plaßmann, Köln Scientific staff during the time this report was being prepared: DirProf Dr. rer. nat. Hubert Wiggering (Secretary-General), Dipl.-Volksw. Lutz Eichler (Deputy Secretary-General), Dipl.-Geogr. Oliver Bens (Cottbus), Dipl.-Biol. Jörg-Andreas Böttge (Berlin), Dr. rer. nat. Britt Damme, Dr. rer. nat. Helga Dieffenbach-Fries, Dipl.-Geoökologe Michael Hahn, Dipl.- Volksw. Annette Jochem, Dipl.-Pol. Helge Jörgens (Berlin), Dr. rer. nat. László Kacsóh, Dr. rer. nat. Christa Lemmen (München), Dipl.-Volksw. Bettina Mankel (Berlin), Dr. rer. pol. Armin Sandhövel, Ass. jur. Michael Schmalholz, RA Christoph Schmihing (Frankfurt). Administrative and support staff during the time this report was being prepared: Dipl.-Sek. Klara Bastian, Dipl.-Bibl. Ursula Belusa, Jörg Faber, Annelie Gottlieb, Sabine Krestan, Martina Lilla, M.A., Bettina Muntetschiniger, Petra Schäfer, Dipl.-Verwaltungsw. Jutta Schindehütte, Dagmar Schlinke, Gabriele Stellmacher. This report went to press on February 2000. Postal address: Geschäftsstelle des Rates von Sachverständigen für Umweltfragen, Postfach 5528, 65180 Wiesbaden, Germany; tel.: +49/611/754210; fax: +49/611/731269; e-mail: [email protected]; internet: http://www.umweltrat.de. (Translation: Paul Kramer, Ph.D.) 2 Foreword On 10 March 2000, the German Council of Environmental Advisors published its environmental report for 2000 under the title “steps into the new millennium”. In this biennial report, the seven experts in the Council assess the state of the environment and environmental policy in Germany, and make numerous recommendations. One of the focal points of this environmental report is the new direction in energy policy. The Council is of the opinion that the continued use of nuclear power is irresponsible, in particular in view of the disposal risks. It endorses the introduction of a change in energy policy and presents more detailed recommendations regarding the ecological tax reform. The Environment Council supports the concept of ecological modernisation which the German government wishes to develop further as part of a strategy oriented to innovation and employment. In principle, and on many individual aspects, it supports the path chosen by the German government. Within the framework of sustainable development, we have to reach agreement in our society on strategies which combine environmental protection, innovation and employment. We need products, procedures and services that keep the consumption of energy, raw material and land to a minimum. This is both an economic and ecological criterion for quality. In many places, the Council is also critical of environmental policy. It highlights the great need for action in the area of nature conservation. A permanent new trend in the number of endangered native animal and plant species in Germany has not yet been achieved. In this context, the Council supports the German government's policy concept for nationwide nature conservation, combined with a large-scale system of interlinked biotopes on 10% of land in Germany. The contribution that can be made by sustainable forest management is dealt with in a separate section. Further areas covered in the report are closed substance cycle and waste management, water soil and climate protection, air pollution control, public health protection and issues of genetic engineering. The report pays particular attention to the environmental aspects of the EU eastern enlargement. The network of European Environment Advisory Councils, the coordination of which presently lies with the German Council, strongly supports intensifying discussion on environmental policy with the candidate countries. On the whole, I rate this report as construct support for the German government's policies. It contains important recommendations for further developing environmental policy, and provides a further stimulant to discussion on environmental policy in Germany. Jürgen Trittin Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 3 Preface The expectations placed on environmental policy-makers have been running high since the change of government in 1998 and the takeover of the Ministry of the Environment by the Green Party. Expectations that this takeover would once again enhance the status of environmental policy were certainly somewhat unrealistic from the very outset. The topics of ecological tax reform and phasing out nuclear energy use have also served to divert attention from other important environmental topics. In view of this development, the German Council of Environmental Advisors (henceforth the Council), in keeping with its charter and mandate, would to like to point out that there are many other environmental problems which still need to be tackled and explained to the public at large in a manner that will create understanding for perhaps drastic measures and the need to comply with obligations to implement sustainable development. Sustainable development still basically exists only on paper, especially as regards its concrete implementation. Since 1994, the Council has, in its environmental reports and in its statements, repeatedly proposed ways and means of translating the concept of sustainable development into practical policy (see, e.g., http://www.umweltrat.de). Nevertheless, its proposals and models have not been sufficiently adopted by German politicians. For this reason, the Council is again taking a close look at the progress made in the discussion on sustainable development, and at the progress made in formulating environmental objectives or an environmental strategy. In this context, the Council examines the experiences of other European and non-European countries, especially in order to ascertain what Germany could learn from these experiences. First of all, however, a procedural framework for setting environmental objectives needs to be outlined, as the Council pointed out in its previous environmental report. In this year's environmental report the Council also deals with the role of the proposed, pluralistically composed Sustainable Development Council. By including a range of persons in this council who represent a variety of interests, the basic conditions are created for making the process of establishing environmental objectives more transparent and for engendering better acceptance of these objectives amongst the public at large. A consultative body like the Council, however, as a scientific policy-advising council, is 4 responsible for (1) evaluating and analyzing new scientific findings, drawing conclusions from them and making them usable for setting environmental objectives, and (2) evaluating current objectives from a scientific point of view. In this context, the Council would like to point out that environmental protection policy is closely linked to other policy areas and, thus, there is a need to integrate policies. The Council has thus increased it cooperation with the Council of Economic Experts. The two Councils and their scientific staff now hold joint meetings. In addition, they held a meeting entitled “Nachhaltiges Wachstum? Schnittstellen in der Arbeit der Sachverständigenräte für Wirtschaft und Umwelt” (Sustainable Development? Intersections in the Work of the Environmental and Economics Councils) in Tutzing on March 1-3, 1999, in which they informed the public about the nature of this cooperation. Increasingly, the Council has to deal with (environmental) policy questions of an international nature. European environmental policy has undergone important and substantial change in the last decades, especially as a result of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 and the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1887. These changes in European environmental policy, the increasing melding of all environmentally relevant sectional policy areas and the concomitant impact thereof upon the development of national policies are an important challenge for the Council. Nationally oriented policy counseling will no longer suffice to meet future needs. For this reason, the Council has actively supported improving cooperation between counseling institutions at the EU level and establishing a network of EU member country environmental councils. As a result, for example, these councils held a conference on September 9-11, 1999, in Budapest, together with councils from potential EU accession countries, to discuss environmental policy relevant aspects of eastern enlargement (see also http://www.Eur-focalpt.org). The results of this conference and the discussion of eastern enlargement are presented in a special chapter in this report (Chapter 2.3.). In this chapter the Council calls upon the German government to participate to a greater extent in the discussion of environmentally relevant 5 issues pertaining to eastern enlargement. Otherwise, EU environmental policy issues are not dealt with in a special chapter, but rather wherever appropriate in the report, for example, where general views on environmental policy developments during the reporting