World Summit on the Information Society
Information and Communication Technologies for
Environmental
Democracy
- Aahus Convention Side Event-
10 December 2003
World
Summit on the Information Society
Aarhus Convention
Press Release
Side Event speakers
from left to right: Lorenz Erdmann, Institute
for Futures
Studies and Technology Assessment
(Germany); Kaidi Tingas of the Regional
Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe;
Chris Jarvis of the
Environment
Agency (UK); Nickolai Denisov of GRID-ARENDAL;
Brigita
Schmögnerovà, Executive Secretary
of UNECE; Jerome Simpson, Regional
Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe;
and Michael Stanley-
Jones, Interactive
Health Ecology Access Links (IHEAL).
"Environmental democracy" was
the theme of a seminar organized by the United
Nations
Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on the opening
day of the World
Summit on the Information Society
10 December 2003 at Palexpo in Geneva. The
event showcased
best practices in the use of electronic information
tools to
strengthen the environmental rights of citizens
and promote good e-governance in
the field of the
environment. It also showed how governments and organizations
are
working to bridge the digital divide by supporting
the development of environmental
information systems
in the less economically developed parts of the UNECE
region.
Mrs.
Brigita Schmögnerovà, Executive Secretary
of UNECE, who chaired the
event, commented
on the way that technological progress had affected
environmental governance: "Electronic information
tools can enable us to work
collectively for more
inclusive political processes, allowing genuine participation
of all
citizens in all countries and broadening our
joint quest for sustainable development".
The event
had shown "how different communities from across the
UNECE region are
pursuing this goal".
SOME GOOD PRACTICES FROM THE UNECE REGION
Experts from governments, international and non-governmental
organizations
demonstrated cutting-edge uses of information
technology to promote government
transparency and
accountability and to empower citizens. The speakers
were the
following:
From availability to accessibility - using
GIS technology to promote corporate
accountability
and increase transparency in tracking toxics in North
America
Michael Stanley-Jones of Interactive Health and
Ecology Access Links addressed the
issue of how
the development of national pollutant registers, Geographic
Information
Systems (G.I.S) and Internet map servers
enable the public (and non-governmental
organizations)
to access interactively chemical data and monitor
the environmental
performance of industrial facilities.
Systems such as Scorecard
(www.scorecard.org)
provided by the NGO Environmental Defense, or iheal.org
member sites, illustrate innovative ways to realise "the common goal of right to know
and environmental
health advocates to employ these new technologies
to track
environmental performance and promote corporate
accountability."
He emphasised
that greater accessibility
supports two-way communications between
the public
and
their governments, as well as between the public
and corporations,
the essential
elements of environmental
democracy.
Technology for all: Bridging the digital
divide in Central and Eastern Europe
Jerome Simpson, Regional Environmental Center for
Central and Eastern Europe,
described some practical
examples that had emerged in recent years demonstrating
how a range of ICTs could be used to foster environmental
democracy. These
examples, he said, enabled not only
dissemination of environmental information but
two-way
exchange, dialog and communication.
The presentation
gave an overview
of the work that the REC had done
in
documenting a number of these examples in a
compendium
of good practice
(available at www.rec.org/e-aarhus).
The effective
use of ICTs, Simpson said, could help bridge
the 'digital divide', with
governments, non-governmental
organisations and cell phone service providers being
key players in this
regard. However, public libraries
should be used to serve local
communities as the
conduit
not only for environmental news and resources but
also
in providing citizens
with access to the Internet
and training in ICT and electronic
information access.
You can download the presentation here.
Using E-tools to promote public participation
in law-making: the Estonian experience
Kaidi Tingas of the Regional Environmental Center
for Central and Eastern Europe
spoke about how
electronic tools allowed the public in her home country
Estonia to
have input to the drafting of legislation
by parliament: "The public are not just
expected to
turn up once every few years to vote for their politicians.
It is
recognised that people should have an ongoing
say in how their country is run, and
electronic tools
have provided a practical way to achieve this. This
is e-democracy
in action."
The presentation can be
found here and the Estonian
government's 'I
Decide Today' facility can be found
at http://www.riik.ee/en.
What's In Your Backyard? Some innovative
uses of e-tools to promote public
participation and
e-government
Chris Jarvis of the Environment Agency (UK) spoke about the experiences gained in
providing key
environmental data through "What's in your Backyard",
a GIS, Internet
based portal (www.environment-agency.gov.uk).
Following this, the Agency is
now further developing
a range of tailored information services, each designed
to
closely meet clearly identified user requirements.
As part of this, the Agency is
investigating how best
to employ ICT to engage the public in its environmental
decision-making.
Developing environmental information systems
in the EECCA region (Eastern
Europe, Caucasus and
Central Asia)
Nickolai Denisov of GRID-ARENDAL explained
how UNEP tries to help countries in
Central and Eastern
Europe and the NIS communicate official environmental
information to the public and to the decision-makers. "Electronic information is very
important and governments
should be encouraged to invest their resources and
information into their future.
Today some 20 million
only in Russia can access the
Internet, and the numbers
will
only increase. But information society is not
only
about IT, people still read stories -
not data.
Hence user-friendly information
products of all kinds
are needed and the
mass media here remain in power
which
counts strongly." For more information,
please
visit www.grida.no/enrin/.
The digital unknown: Assessing the impact
of ICTs on the
environment and
human health
Lorenz Erdmann of the Institute for Futures Studies
and Technology Assessment
highlighted what we
know today about the impact of information and communication
technologies on human environment and health. "The
promises of an economy based
upon bits instead of
atoms have not been realised until today." Modelling
the future
impact of ICT on environmental sustainability
in the EU until 2020 shows that this will
remain a
myth.
The trend towards pervasive computing will raise
new questions for
the
precautionary principle. "Participatory
technology assessment could contribute
to a more need-
than technology-driven development of ICTs." A comprehensive
study on the precautionary principle for pervasive
computing is available at:
http://www.ta-swiss.ch/
The presentation can be viewed here.
PANEL DISCUSSION
After this a panel discussion was held with the following
panellists:
Zaal
Lomtadze, Deputy Minister for the Environment of Georgia,
emphasized
that the need for environmental rights
was increasingly recognized by many
governments but
said that, without raising public awareness about
environmental
issues and active dissemination of information,
including by electronic tools, the
governments would
not be able to achieve progress in their work. He
admitted that,
in the countries with economies in
transition, there were serious limitations to the
use of information and communication technologies
to provide universal access to
information, including
financial and human resources constraints. Nevertheless,
these
constraints should not prevent these countries
from introducing mechanisms for
effective and timely
public participation. He commended the innovative
use of
electronic tools to facilitate public participation
in law-making in Estonia by saying
that this example
clearly showed how these limitations could be overcome.
Kaj
Barlund, Director of the UNECE Environment and Human
Settlements
Division, said that the good
practice examples presented at the event clearly
pointed
out that the digital divide, often seen as a division
between the North and
the South, also existed in the
North, not only between economically developed and
less developed countries of the UNECE region, but
also within countries. He saw the
primary importance
of the Aarhus Convention in this context in creating
a set of
legal obligations to provide access to information
to all citizens and to enable them
to participate
in decision-making. In discussing the digital divide,
he said, we must
not forget that those that found
themselves on the other side of this divide were as
important and should have equal opportunities to participate.
Gao
Pronove, Executive Coordinator of the non-governmental
organization
Earth Council, said that the
digital divide was not a new phenomenon, but one
manifestation
of a deeper divide between the developed and the developing
countries. He said that information and communication
technologies were primarily
market-driven and that
the use of electronic tools usually occurred in areas
with
high purchasing power, but also stressed the
importance of the use of new
technologies to advance
good environmental governance and public participation.
Mr
Pronove said that his organization specialized
in capacity-building through
E-education and said
that an E-learning platform that they developed could
potentially be a useful tool for the countries and
organizations in the UNECE region.
Stefan Jensen represented the European
Environment Agency (EEA) as a
panellist.
He reflected on the presentations by identifying a
good coverage of the 3
pillars of the Arhus convention.
Still, it was evident that while there are a lot of
good
examples on free access to environmental information,
the area of public
participation through ICT applications,
needed further attention. He also reflected on
EEA's
experiences in complying with the Convention by developing
and marketing
transparent, internet available ICT
solutions to streamline environmental reporting.
The
lesson learned in working especially with EECCA countries
was that capacity
building initiatives around tools
and the networks making use of them, as well as
sustainable
organisational and political processes, need to be
further advanced in
order to make an impact in the
cooperation with the countries and to provide a
benefit
for their population.
Examples
of good practices from throughout the UNECE region
have been collected
and documented under the auspices
of the Task
Force on Electronic Information
Tools established
under the Aarhus Convention. For many governments
and NGOs in
the UNECE region, the Convention provides
the main legal framework for addressing
issues of
access to environmental information.
The Convention
requires its Parties to
ensure that environmental
information
progressively becomes available in electronic
form through the Internet. However,
increased use
of electronic tools should not
mean that information
is less available
through traditional means. Otherwise,
the
electronic revolution could actually lead to
reduced
access to information for those
who are on the wrong
side of the digital
divide.