§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will make a statement on the outcome of the special meeting on the environment held at the end of January at the OECD in Paris.
§ Mr. HeseltineI represented the United Kingdom at this meeting.
The meeting of the OECD Environment Committee at ministerial level on 30 and 31 January 1991 was the fourth occasion on which Environment Ministers had met in this forum since 1970.
Ministers discussed the international community's response to the Gulf oil spill and called for a strengthening of the international capacity to prevent and confront future environmental disasters. This would involve the strengthening of international principles and agreements, the reinforcement of technological and institutional response capacities as well as the possible establishment of liability verification and claims settlement procedures, in co-operation with the United Nations Environment Programme, the International Maritime Organisation and other relevant international organisations. Ministers called for early and full implementation of the IMO convention on oil pollution preparedness response and co-operation and for urgent work to develop a register of information on technological and institutional response capacities.
225WThe United Kingdom worked actively to secure agreement on a new OECD act on the reduction of transfrontier movements of wastes. This act, approved with a USA reservation, will require OECD countries to work towards self-sufficiency in disposing of wastes within their own territories and to co-operate in further limiting international traffic in wastes.
The United Kingdom supported four other OECD acts approved by Ministers. These covered further OECD work on environmental information and indicators, a guide to integrated pollution prevention and control policies, recommendations on the use of economic instruments in environmental policy, and an agreement between OECD member countries to share responsibility for investigating and dealing with the risks posed by existing chemicals to human health and the environment.
Ministers welcomed OECD's latest state of the environment report and its preliminary set of environmental indicators. We approved a forward-looking communiqué endorsing a large number of initiatives intended to develop closer policy integration and improved environmental performance both at the national level and within the OECD region. Particular attention was paid to the need for better integration of environmental and economic decision-making. Our communiqué also stressed the need for strengthened international co-operation, particularly with the countries of eastern and central Europe and with developing countries.
I am placing in the Library copies of the ministerial communiqué, the ministerial statement on the environmental situation in the Gulf and the text of the five OECD acts approved by Ministers.