Perspectives from the U.N. in Dubai: Tourism, Governance, Chemicals, and Energy

Worldwatch Live Online Discussion

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport

February 16, 2006 - 3:00pm EDT

Last week, Zoë Chafe (Worldwatch), Daryl Ditz (Center for International Environmental Law), and Kate Davenport (EcoVentures International) joined more than 100 environment ministers in the glittering desert city of Dubai for a series of meetings organized by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). This gathering, billed as the first of its kind in West Asia, brought together scores of government officials, youth, business associations, and NGOs to discuss four important subjects: chemicals management, international environmental governance, energy, and tourism.

This online discussion has ended, but please browse through the questions and answers below from our guests and visitors!

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Welcome to Worldwatch Live! Today we welcome ZoÃŽ Chafe, Daryl Ditz, and Kate Davenport, who will answer your questions and discuss their experience at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) meetings in Dubai last week. Welcome!

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : Thanks, Steve. It was an honor to represent North American Civil Society in Dubai. We're looking forward to answering your questions on chemicals, tourism, energy, international environmental governance, or the UNEP process itself!

Washington, D.C.: What other NGOs were represented in Dubai? Was there really representation from all regions?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : The Global Civil Society Forum, which took place for two days before the environment ministers arrived, truly had representation from all regions. There was an especially strong presence from West Asia, the region that played host to the meeting. For a complete listing of the NGOs that were there, see http://www.unep.org/DPDL/civil_society/GCSF/participants_gcsf7.pdf.

Charleston, WV: Any reflections on attending a meeting around environmental issues in an place as unsustainable as Dubai? My time there showcased a city teaming with development, landscape management issues, and water quality problems. Any sense of why Dubai was the host, and did the meeting have any positive environmental impact in the UAE or in local media?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : It was very interesting having this meeting in Dubai, for many of the reasons that you point out in your question. The city is growing extremely rapidly, with much of the growth having occured over just the past 10 years. Dubai has very consciously chosen tourism as an alternative to oil revenues. Dubai hosted the 3rd annual Zayed International Prize for the Environment in concurrence with the UNEP meetings that we attended. Both Kofi Annan and the authors of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment were honored at that event, so that may have been a prime reason for selecting Dubai as host. The UNEP ministerial meetings are held in Nairobi every other year, and on the off years, regions rotate as hosts. The setting definitely made our conversations about sustainable tourism seem that much more prescient. The local media covered many of the events, which was a very encouraging sign. I'd like to highlight two local environmental organizations in Dubai, the Emirates Environmental Group (www.eeg-uae.org) and the Emirates Diving Association (www.emiratesdiving.com). Both are very highly regarded there and were active in organizing the civil society meetings.

Los Angeles, CA: Good news about the chemicals management agreement. What were some of the most controversial points in the agreement? What happens to the agreement now in terms of implementation?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : First it is important to distinguish between two different meetings in Dubai. The UNEP Global Civil Society Forum is an important annual event designed to give NGOs and other members of civil society an opportunity to speak directly to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Global Environmental Ministerial Forum. Simultaneously, the International Conference on Chemicals Management was taking place, in an adjoining hall. This was the culmination of a 3 year process to agree upon an global action plan for tackling dangerous chemicals known as the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, or "SAICM.".

This chemicals meeting should have been a mere formality, timed to coincide with the arrival of over 100 environment ministers. Except that the United States delegation seemed determined to use this as an opportunity to undermine international environmental progress. In the end, literally nearing midnight of the third and final day, after the translators had left the building, the U.S. dropped its final objections and concensus was achieved.

Some of the key sticking points include: whether and how financial resources will be available to aid developing countries and economies in transition in the implementation of SAICM; the interpretation of "precaution" and other relevant principles; the scope of the agreement; and, SIACM's relevance to international law, especially future trade disputes.

Sadly the negotiations were essentially the U.S. against the world, with the SAICM President, former Swedish minister Viveka Bohn forced to plead repeatedly with the U.S. to please give a little in the name of consensus. In 20+ years of working on these issues in a number of international processes, this was one of the worst performances that I have ever witnessed.

Washington, DC: Can you discuss how youth political involvement in the UNEP process took shape at this particular meeting? I read on the blog www.itsgettinghotinhere.org something about a youth statement of some kind? Did it have any impact?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : The participation of youth in the process is a little bit different than that of civil society. The Global Civil Society Forum included representatives from business and industry, NGOs, women, and trade unions. Youth participated in the forum, but they had their own process for putting together a statement and submitted a youth statement to the UNEP Global Ministerial that was separate from the Global Civil Society Statement. The process for youth participation centers around the UNEP Tunza Youth Council. The Tunza Youth Council is made up of two youth representatives from six regions around the world: North America, South America, Europe, Africa, West Asia, and Asia. The Tunza Youth Council is selected every two years at the UNEP Youth Conference, which brings together over 100 youth leaders from all over the world. (The most recent conference was in Bangalore, India in October 2005).

The Tunza Youth Council had one representative from each region present at the UNEP Global Ministerial Forum in Dubai. As elected representatives from the region, these members of the Tunza Youth Council prepared a statement that was the result of input which they solicited from youth from around the world.

Based on this statement, the youth representative made an intervention in the Ministerial Meeting in regard to energy. This statement highlighted youth's particular perspective on energy. Does such a statement make an impact? There are two ways to look at this. The first is that the Global Ministerial that occurred in Dubai was a time for governments to discuss three issues: chemicals, energy, and tourism. These discussions were not structured for government to make any specific decisions (such decisions are made every two years at the UNEP Governing Council); however such discussions feed into decisions to be made both in regard to UNEP and in regard to other processes such as the Commission on Sustainable Development. Because of the structure of the meeting in Dubai, youth did not have a direct impact per se on specific decisions. That said, there is a great power in governments consistenetly hearing the youth perspective, particularly because the youth perspective often provides a reminder on both the ethical and moral nature of many of these issues and provides evidence of the innovative approaches that youth are taking to create change in their own communities. So, the written youth statement and the youth interventions made during discussions does have a long term impact. It is important for governments to know that youth are engaged in these issues and that youth are working both to hold governments accountable but also to lead the effort for change directly.

N.Y., N.Y.: Reading through the documents, I've noticed that the term "sustainable tourism" is used more often than ecotourism. How are the two different?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : Thanks for this question. Tourism terminology can get confusing! Sustainable tourism represents a set of environmental, social and economic principles that can be applied to any part of the tourism industry--"sun and sand" tourism, "adventure" tourism, "urban" tourism. Ecotourism represents the intersection of "nature-based" tourism and sustainable tourism. At the Dubai meetings, civil society made a statement to the ministers that said, "It is vitally important that sustainable tourism principles are applied to all aspects of the industry." Here are some examples of sustainable tourism principles: economic viability, local prosperity, employment quality, social equity, visitor fullfilment, local control, community-wellbeing, cultural richness, physical integrity, biological diversity, resource efficiency, and environmental purity. For more on these, see the great UNEP and World Tourism Organization publication, "Making Tourism More Sustainable: A Guide for Policymakers."

Washington, DC: Were there onsite working groups developing the papers for presentation to the environment ministers? What were the critical issues out of each of these groups?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : The Global Civil Society Statement was a composite draft (finalized before Dubai) based on a set of six regional civil society consultations and regional statements. These regional statements all addressed the three themes for this year -- tourism, energy and chemicals -- along with international environmental governance and other overarching themes. For example, the North American Civil Society meeting was held in Washington, DC Oct. 28, 2005 and produced a North American civil society statement. The full set of regional statements are available on the GCSF website: http://www.unep.org/DPDL/civil_society/GCSF/index.asp

In the case of Chemicals, the GCSF departed from their agenda in Dubai to consider, draft, and adopt a civil society resolution that was formally delivered to the International Chemicals meeting next door.

I would like to encourage any and all interested NGOs to consider participating in this process in the future. This is a good opportunity for calling attention to issues and ideas that are important to civil society, for building and strengthening ties with like-minded groups, and for communicating these messages to governments, international organizations and others.

Bethesda, MD: How did the Middle Eastern governments and press react to the promotion of renewable energy promotion, in light of the oil-dependence of the economies in the region?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : I see that there are two questions in regard to the issue of renewable energy promotion and the middle east. This responses serves to answer both questions.

There were different responses from different Middle Eastern Countries. Particular ones came from Saudi Arabia and Iran. There was not an outright refusal to look at the promotion of renewable energy. However, Saudi Arabia, in the discussions, noted the role of oil in its economy and cited that a complete shift from the use of oil would lead to unemployment and overall economic difficulty. Saudi Arabia then went on to discuss the role that carbon capturing mechanisms can play in addressing climate change. Investment and implmentation of carbon capturing mechanisms and carbon sequestration technologies, in the view of Saudi Arabia, could address carbon emissions into the atmosphere and thus help to prevent continued global warming and also not result in major economic downturn in their economy. Civil Society representatives made a direct intervention in the discussions in regard to the comments of Saudi Arabia. Civil Society note that carbon capturing mechanisms are still far from being adequately research and developed (and effective implmentation is probably 20 years off), therefore Civil Society warned about diversion of investment from the implmentation of renewable technologies and into carbon capturing mechanisms.

Iran specifically noted that nuclear energy should be included as a renewable energy.

Overall, there was not a refusal by Arab States to address renewable energy, but there was not a direct promotion of renewable energies such as solar, wind, bioenergy, and geothermal.

Washington, DC: How were private sector interests involved in the meetings? And was there interest from investors to support growing ecotourism and clean technology markets?

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : The private sector is considered part of civil society in UNEP processes. (Civil society is actually a broad term that embraces nine "major groups," and "Business and Industry" is included one of those groups; NGOs and Youth are two others.) Private sector representatives took part in the Global Civil Society Forum in Dubai, mostly on behalf of groups such as the International Chamber of Commerce. The Business and Industry representatives made a statement during ministerial discussions on energy, in which they advocated for innovative financing arrangements. They also underlined the relationship between good governance and its role in attracting investments. Unfortunately, and surprisingly, the Business and Industry representatives did not engage with the issue of tourism. On a side note, there was an Environmentally Sound Technology Showcase running concurrently in Dubai, and many private sector firms were on display there. We did saw strong representation from the private sector at the North American regional civil society meeting last November.

Boston: Can you summarize the areas where progress was made and also describe what actions by NGOs or others would be useful in the short term.

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : The UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum makes decisions every over year, no major decisions were expected in Dubai.

However, it is important that NGOs take advantage of this process. Speaking on behalf of people from all walks of life, we have a kind of moral authority that provides a valuable input to international decision making. NGOs have the ability to speak less "diplomatically" than the diplomats, which can help to identify obstacles and move discussions forward. I believe that more and more governments are more inclined to take NGOs seriously, and to look for areas of agreement as a result of the continued participation of civil society.

Steve Conklin, Worldwatch Institute: Thanks for joining us today, Zoë, Daryl, and Kate!

Zoë Chafe, Daryl Ditz, Kate Davenport : Thanks to you, Steve, and to all the participants. Your questions were wonderful. We hope that this chat gave you some insight into the UNEP processes, and pointed you towards resources on the issues that were discussed.