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by Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne,

International Civil Aviation Organisation

Although 2002 was a difficult year for the air transport industry whose prosperity took a downward direction, 2003 portended to be even more challenging. This is mostly due to airlines taking more courageous and calculated risks towards higher yield in response to trends in economic and global security.

Although this should prove beneficial in the long term, the sense of uncertainty that prevails will affect the supply of air transport services if only in response to the natural apprehension of uncertainty in getting short term return on investments.

Since individual airlines are being increasingly challenged to deliver improved results in 2003, the world is faced with a trend toward increasing supply of air transport services bringing with it an ominous dimension of concern for the environment and the compelling need for the industry to move toward sustainability within its own parameters of development.

The significance of this reality is brought to bear by the fourth principle of the Declaration of the June 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Summit), which states that in order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection must constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.

The integral link between development and environmental protection, with a view to ensuring sustainable development, was developed as early as in 1972, when member countries of the European Economic Community, through their heads of State endorsed the view that economic development must intrinsically be proportionate to improvement in the quality of life.

What is sustainable development?

The Rio summit

Essentially, the term 'sustainable development' in the context of the environmental protection means "development which the environment can sustain without being polluted". The term has its genesis in the Rio Summit which had the following priorities incorporated in its Report,in Agenda 21:

* achieving sustainable growth, as through integrating environment and development in decision-making;

* fostering and equitable world, as by combating poverty and protecting human health;

* making the world habitable by addressing issues of urban water supply, solid waste management, and urban pollution;

* encouraging efficient resource use, a category which includes management of energy resources, care and use of fresh water, forest development, management of fragile eco systems, conservation of biological diversity, and management of land resources;

* protecting global and regional resources, including the atmosphere, oceans and seas, and living marine resources; and

* managing chemicals and hazardous and nuclear wastes.

For the above purposes, member states of the United Nations agreed at the Conference to establish a new Commission for Sustainable Development which was mandated to monitor and review the implementation of Agenda 21.

The UNCED initiative re-established the notion that environment is an inextricable and integral part of sustainable development and that environmental issues were not sui generis or stand-alone issues but were incontrovertibly linked to their economic, political and social contexts.

The general thrust of the UNCED conclusions was that environmental issues were the necessary corollaries to social processes and should be addressed on the basis of equity, care for nature and natural resources and development of society.

Environmental management is therefore the key to effective sustainable development.

The flavour of the UNCED process introduced a hitherto unknown element in environmental protection - a diversion from the mere cleaning up or repairing damage to being a sustained social activity which brings to bear the need to force development to keep pace with the environmental equilibrium and stability of the world.

The UNCED process epitomizes the premise that any bifurcation of environment and sustainable development is arbitrary and cosmetic.

With this in view, sustainable development is now internationally managed by the primary United Nations regulatory body on the environment - the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) - which addresses the subject of sustainable development in three component elements:

* environmental assessment: through the evaluation and review, research and monitoring and the exchange of views on the environment;

* environmental management: through comprehensive planning that takes into account the effects of the acts of humans on the environment; and

* supporting measures: through education, training and public information and also through financial assistance and organizational arrangements.

The above tools are used by UNEP in carrying out the task assigned to it by Agenda 21 of UNCED, which, in its Chapter 38, paragraph 22 set out the following priority areas on which UNEP should concentrate on:

a. Strengthening its catalytic role in stimulating and promoting environmental activities and considerations throughout the United Nations system;

b. Promoting international co-operation in the field of environment and recommending, as appropriate, policies to this end; Developing and promoting the use of techniques such as natural resource accounting and environmental economics;

c. Environmental monitoring and assessment, both through improved participation by the United Nations system agencies in the Earthwatch programme and expanded relations with private scientific and non-governmental research institutes; strengthening and making operational its early-warning function;

d. Co-ordination and promotion of relevant scientific research with a view to providing a consolidated basis for decision-making;

e. Dissemination of environmental information and data to Governments and to organs, programmes and organizations of the United Nations system;

f. Raising general awareness and action in the area of environmental protection through collaboration with the general public, non-governmental entities and intergovernmental institutions;

g. Further development of international environmental law, in particular conventions and guidelines, promotion of its implementation, and co-ordinating functions arising from an increasing number of international legal agreements, inter alia, the functioning of the secretariats of the Conventions, taking into account the need for the most efficient use of resources, including possible co-location of secretariats established in the future;

h. Further development and promotion of the widest possible use of environmental impact assessments, including activities carried out under the auspices of specialized agencies of the United Nations system, and in connection with every significant economic development project or activity.

i. Facilitation of information exchange on environmentally sound technologies, including legal aspects, and provision of training.

The fundamental starting point for any discussion on sustainable development is the prospect of world population doubling in size at the end of the current century to 10 billion, at the rate of anin crease of 95 million per year.

(To be continued)

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