AARHUS CONVENTION

Task force on electronic information tools - WSIS Cluster Week

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.