home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
CNN Newsroom: Global View
/
CNN Newsroom: Global View.iso
/
txt
/
fbis
/
fbis0991.001
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1994-05-02
|
5KB
|
106 lines
<text>
<title>
Danish Leader Says Environment Is Critical Issue
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Foreign Broadcast Information Service, September 9, 1991
Denmark: Political Leader Says Environment Crucial Issue
</hdr>
<body>
<p>[Social Democratic Party Chairman Svend Auken "Commentary"
article: "Environmental Policy Is Central". Copenhagen DET FRI
AKTUELT in Danish 6 Sep 91 p 15]
</p>
<p> [Text] Eastern Europe and Western Europe are changing. Old
systems and ideas are being rejected--and new ones are being
put in their place. Patterns of past cooperation are being
strengthened and extended. In this process of transformation we
Danes must remember that we have a great opportunity to
influence the future.
</p>
<p> In one field in particular Denmark can make a great
contribution: environmental policy. Here in Denmark we try to
pay attention to the environment when formulating other policies--something from which many countries, particularly those in
Eastern Europe, can learn.
</p>
<p> However, we have to know when to seize the opportunity. A
great challenge is facing us--and time is short.
</p>
<p> I would like here to point to two areas where there is today
a great need for a conscious effort to promote environmental
concerns.
</p>
<p> The first is EC countries' intergovernmental conferences for
a new and stronger foundation for future EC cooperation.
</p>
<p> For social democratic parties it is vitally important that
environmental policy be given a much more central position in
the spectrum of the EC's activities.
</p>
<p> The principle of environmentally sound development must be
one of the foremost aims in the Community's development, so that
the solution to our fundamental environmental problems does not
take second place to other considerations.
</p>
<p> I believe that member countries who were hesitant over the
most recent revision of the treaty have today realized that
there is a considerable need for joint environmental measures.
The current discussions in the intergovernmental conference
appear to demonstrate this.
</p>
<p> The other area where there is a need for a conscious effort
to promote environmental concerns is Eastern Europe--in the
newly independent countries along the shores of the Baltic and
in the republics which are today deciding their future relations
with what we formerly recognized as the Soviet Union.
</p>
<p> The environmental situation in these countries is a lot
worse than previously assumed. In the former Soviet Union in
particular the most recent reports indicate that the country is
on the verge of an environmental catastrophe of colossal
proportions. This is a development which threatens the health,
economy, and environment of our part of the world.
</p>
<p> The Baltic Sea is being filled with heavily polluted water
from Saint Petersburg and the Baltic countries.
</p>
<p> Northern Scandinavia is threatened by the heavy pollution
from the Kola Peninsula in the Soviet Union.
</p>
<p> In Poland and Czechoslovakia the pollution from the Soviet
Union is an additional strain on the forests, which have
already suffered much devastation.
</p>
<p> The man-made desert around what was once the Aral Sea is
growing at the same rate as the desert in the Sahel region
south of the Sahara, and health standards are the same as those
in Bangladesh.
</p>
<p> Air pollution is considerable and has serious consequences.
In the industrial town of Chelyabinsk in the southern Urals,
half of the young men are unsuitable for military service
because of poor health.
</p>
<p> The situation in what was the Soviet Union is so serious
that Western scientists have proposed the setting-up of an
"ecological wall" from the Kola Peninsula down through the
Baltic countries and on through central Europe.
</p>
<p> According to these scientists, such an "ecological wall,"
created through Western investment, is necessary to slow down
the spread of environmental devastation. Only in the longer term--and with the investment of considerable resources--will it
be possible to combat the pollution in the rest of what was the
Soviet Union.
</p>
<p> The West's environmental program has begun. But today it is
totally inadequate.
</p>
<p> A conscious environmental effort should be a central part of
the significant aid which we must give to the budding
democracies in the East as soon as possible.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>