Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
transfer, directly or indirectly, damage or hazards from one area to another or
transform one type of pollution into another.'
There have been well-known cases where factories raised the height of their
chimneys so that their pollutants were no longer harmful to those in the
immediate vicinity, but instead dispersed the damage among more distant
environments and communities. The same logic can be seen in the way in
which atmospheric substances impact on various different environmental
problems. The better the governance mechanisms for environmental problems
and their sources are coordinated - or common decision-making measures are
created - the better the chances are of avoiding the replacement of one
emission problem with another.
A vast number of treaty regimes regulate international environmental
problems, of which only a few coordinate their actions with each other.
A signifi cant exception is the deepening cooperation between the Basel,
Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions: the synergies between these three
treaty systems are being enhanced in several different ways and should serve
as an example for other treaty regimes that regulate partly overlapping envi-
ronmental problems.
It is imperative that these international objectives are matched within the
national context: the way in which each state implements its international
environmental treaty obligations. Unless it is coordinated at the national level,
the signifi cance of these treaties will remain limited. The treaties can only
work when they are implemented nationally. The resources and capacity for
environmental protection of developing nations should be better coordinated.
One of the objectives for most global environmental treaties is to improve the
ability of developing nations to understand the causes and effects of their envi-
ronmental problems and to advance their management of them. It is vital that
the programmes of the various international environmental treaties and UNEP
programmes are unifi ed so that resources are not wasted and know-how is
shared more effi ciently.
The latest scientifi c research on an environmental problem's status is essen-
tial to the decision-making of the majority of international environmental
treaty regimes, and so it cannot be benefi cial that the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) was separated from the climate change regime
itself. When science is fi ltered into the international environmental protection
treaties effi ciently and objectively, the decision-makers' prospects of making
more sustainable decisions are greatly improved.
A world environmental organization (WEO)
When institutional changes for international environmental law and policy are
debated, the idea of an organization comparable with the World Trade
Organization (WTO) is often proposed: a 'world environmental organization'
(WEO). If an organization were created along the lines of the WTO, all the
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