This event in Ukraine’s ecological life is slated to take place in the next few days. It has been discussed throughout the year. The organizing committee documents read that the Fifth Pan-European Conference in Kyiv will be attended by the ecology ministers of 55 countries, 1,800 guests from abroad, and representatives of environmental NGOs.
Long before the event (when no one knew exactly what documents would be discussed), people at Ukraine’s Ministry of the Environment said that the event would be especially important for the host country and would enhance Ukraine’s international image. Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Vasyl Shevchuk told The Day that, while previously Ukraine was squeezed into the CIS ecological strategy, now there is a good chance to “march shoulder to shoulder with Europe.” The more so that the previous such conference in Бrhus, Denmark, decided that the further European ecological process should focus on the East European region. In other words, European countries should help Eastern European transition democracies bring themselves into conformity with the existing environmental standards. Of course, this means combining efforts in terms of stable economic-ecological cooperation.
Even now it is predicted that the signing of certain documents during the conference, especially the Protocol on the Register of Discharges and Transfer of Pollutants will be followed by stormy debates in the Ukrainian Parliament. Almost all countries participating in the ministerial Olympics, as the event has already been tagged, are familiar with the principle, all they need is determine a common denominator in the nuance. And Ukraine will have to jump all the hurdles: register the “initial” data of all production facilities (the amount and characteristics of waste discharges), draw up a full register, and most importantly, make it accessible to everybody. The United States did so fifteen years ago, so every resident could look up on the Internet the statistics on any company or project. True, this caused heated discussion shortly afterward, as such easily accessible information threatened the disclosure of commercial secrets. In addition, according to Lidia Hrynkovych of the volunteer ecological organization, Momma-86, people would access the Internet and then claim damages for living in the vicinity of hazardous production facilities. Companies would then undertake to reduce harmful discharges and sometimes paid money to the environmental fund that would be channeled into “purification.”
The conference will bet mainly on the Carpathian Convention (on steady development of the Carpathian region), expected to be signed by Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Yugoslavia. Under the project everybody will join efforts on practically everything, from planning and managing land resources to tourism to the protection of historical monuments. Such steps will be taken relying on the Alpine experience. Every country in that region was hard put to finance its development single-handedly and the effectiveness of such efforts varied. Hennady Rudenko, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Ecological Policy, does not rule out the possibility of differences when deciding on the center and capital investments in the Carpathian region, but hopes that Ukraine will receive help in any case. He also believes that such joint documents offer Ukraine every possible opportunity to receive grants in amounts exceeding even the nation’s Environment Protection Fund ($10 million). Mr. Rudenko says Ukraine must insist that the cost of holding the conference in Kyiv (Euro 1,300,000) be placed to offset debts stemming from European ecological conventions, the more so that the preconditions for such a way to solve financial matters were presented at the summit in Johannesburg, when the Ukrainian delegation proposed dealing with ecological problems by means of public debt write-offs. Serhiy Kurykin, then Minister of the Environment, said his foreign colleagues were inspired by the initiative.
Below is the article by Mark M. Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Program, presented to The Day on the eve of the conference.
