With fewer available funds, in addition to a lack of consensus on how to move forward, will this year's Environment for Europe conference in Belgrade provide a stunning breakthrough or prove the end of an era?
By Nathan Johnson
"Well, the worst thing that could happen would be for the process to collapse," he answered. "That would certainly be the worst outcome."
The man in question was Adriaan Oudeman, coordinator of the International Environmental Affairs Directorate, and the Dutch delegate for the Third Meeting of the Ad Hoc Preparatory Working Group of Senior Officials, which took place on August 29-31 in Geneva, Switzerland. The process to which Oudeman was referring is Environment for Europe (EfE), launched in 1991 at Dobris Castle in the former Czechoslovakia, shaped and guided through subsequent ministerial conferences in Lucerne, Switzerland (1993), Sofia, Bulgaria (1995), Aarhus, Denmark (1998) and Kiev, Ukraine (2003), and which now continues — though on much less certain footing — with the Sixth Ministerial 'Environment for Europe' Conference, to be held on October 10-12 in Belgrade, Serbia.
I travelled in August to Geneva to meet individuals planning to take part in the Belgrade proceedings — many of whom have been involved in the process for many years — and to try and gain some clearer insight into this political and bureaucratic process that has been, despite its daunting breadth of scope and complexity, hugely influential in steering pan-European environmental policy. The primary purpose of the ad hoc meeting, which took place at the Palais de Nations, was to achieve consensus on the wording of the draft ministerial declaration.
My conversation with Oudeman took place on the morning of the 30th, prior to the second round of talks. The first round had proven, at best, non-productive; at worst, a disaster. Norway delegate Eldrid Nordbo had summed up the previous day's lack of progress with a biting comment from the floor: "What we are doing now is a complete waste of time." Walking to the second session I got caught in a downpour without an umbrella. I managed to escape the deluge by standing beneath the awning of a nearby hotel. Oudeman emerged by chance a few seconds later from the hotel lobby, and recognising him from the day before, I introduced myself. He was kind enough to grab another umbrella from the hotel; and so we set out in the rain, talking along the way.
On recalling this incident, I thought about how in my duty to cover the environment from a news perspective, I had completely neglected to make pay attention to the actual weather. And I kept thinking while writing this article that perhaps the future of the Environment for Europe process lies in its ability to move beyond words and achieve real success 'on the ground.'