The answers to these questions make a sobering appraisal. Most of the demands which the Austrian NGOs submitted to the government in the wake of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio could be reiterated unchanged today. In many cases the situation has actually deteriorated dramatically.

The North, in which 20% of the world’s population consumes 80% of global resources, bears a special responsibility with regard to environment and development-related issues. The Austrian government must meets its obligations here.

Just one year prior to the Rio + 10 World Summit in Johannesburg, the Austrian NGOs working in the fields of environmental and development policy submit the present catalogue of their current demands to the government. It comprises 7 + 1 demands. The +1 demand relates to civil society and an integrated policy approach and thus constitutes a fundamental prerequisite for all of the other seven demands.

The demands address action within Austria on the one hand and Austria’s responsibility with regard to the implementation of its foreign policy on the other hand.

In terms of the envisaged time frame, these demands call for action on the part of the government both in the next twelve months and as a long-term commitment.

• We call on the Austrian government to involve representatives of civil society in the decision-making processes and in the structures designed to monitor compliance with the demands listed here.

• We call on the Austrian government to enable representatives of Austrian NGOs to attend international UN conferences (Rio + 10) and to include them in the Austrian delegations by taking over the costs.

Over the last century global water consumption has increased twice as fast as the population. According to UN projections, 2.5 billion people – one third of the world population – could be suffering from an acute shortage of water by the year 2025. This situation would primarily affect people in developing countries, especially women. Already today, 1.4 billion people are without clean drinking water, and 7 million people die every year after drinking contaminated water. The increasing dearth of drinking water is transforming it from a basic human necessity into a source of strategic conflicts between peoples and nations. There is a danger that the coming 25 years will see war being waged over the dwindling resources of water. It is becoming a coveted market commodity, and the water supply industry is facing sweeping structural changes, not only in Europe. In developing countries in particular, more and more international enterprises are taking over local water supplies, thus acquiring a virtual monopoly over access to a life-sustaining resource.

Austria is fortunate enough to have abundant water resources at its disposal. At the same time large quantities of its ground water are heavily contaminated by nitrates and pesticides.

We call on the Austrian government to advocate the following demands:

• In ground water protection zones, the utilisation of farm land must switch to organic agricultural methods.
• The Austrian government must advocate the continued availability of water for sustainable public utilisation as a natural resource and prevent it from becoming merely a commercial commodity. Water supplies meet a providential existential need (by the terms of the Amsterdam Treaty) and must therefore be exempted from the liberalisation process within the Single Market and remain in public ownership.
• Areas in which the ground water is contaminated by pesticides and nitrates, classified as "Areas for monitoring and probable action", must be made subject to clearly-defined regulations and utilisation restrictions, and the farming in these areas must switch to organic agricultural methods.
• In implementing the EU’s water directive, the Austrian government must protect every single resource of ground water in Austria and ensure its continued existence at a quality level at least equivalent to drinking water.

We call for the following demands to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• At the WTO meeting in Qatar in November 2001 the Austrian government should oppose the privatisation of water supplies in the GATS (trade in services) talks. Prior to the WTO meeting Austria should impress its stance on other EU member countries and notify the Platform for Environment and Development of its position in advance of the WTO ministerial meeting.

• The principle that water supplies continue to be publicly owned should be incorporated in the applicable legal formulations.

Glaciers will melt, the levels of the oceans will rise, storms and hurricanes will become more frequent, and within a matter of decades there will be dramatic changes in the distribution of natural resources like water. The latest report published by the IPCC, the international research body on climate change set up by the UN, confirms the widely publicised projections. According to this horror scenario, the losers will include the majority of the world’s population, with the poorest hit hardest. In Austria too, man-made climate change will result in far-reaching ecological, economic and social problems. Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio there have been six UN conferences on the outline climate convention, but all they have produced is a (largely non-binding) outline working plan on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by the industrialised nations. The Kyoto Protocol, approved in 1997, has still not come into force.

Fossil fuel-based energy generation is the main factor behind global climate change. Nuclear power generation poses a threat to millions of people in the event of an accident, while the uranium mining it necessitates and the still unsolved problem of nuclear waste disposal are environmental and human health hazards. The construction of large-scale hydro-electric plants has a devastating impact on the eco-system and leads to the enforced resettlement of the local population and hence to violations of social and human rights. These considerations point to the need for an environment-friendly and humanly compatible approach to energy utilisation.

Austria too has in large measure omitted to take account of climate compatibility and global responsibility in the formulation of its national energy policy. As a result, Austria’s CO₂ emissions level has risen by more than 8% in the last decade. A few exemplary projects have been carried out, but only on a local scale.

We call on the Austrian government to lend its support to the following demands:

• Initiatives must be launched to ensure that, in the federal provinces’ housing subsidisation procedures, eligibility is linked to compliance with an energy-related minimum standard for all projects. At the same time the emphasis needs to be shifted from new housing to renovation and modernisation. The subsidisation of fossil fuel-based energy systems must cease. All existing buildings should be subjected to an energy standard evaluation (energy audit).

• The Austrian government should forego invoking the Kyoto mechanisms as a means of complying with the national climate protection targets. Austria must reach these targets through action taken within Austria. We explicitly welcome all environmental protection measures, especially those implemented in Central and Eastern European countries. These must, however, not be treated as substitutes for such measures in Austria.
• Substantially more needs to be done in the field of information and awareness-raising. Priority programmes should be drawn up and adequately funded to cover the topics traffic and transport, domestic heating, waste abatement and nutrition.

• Austria must encourage the spread of renewable energy systems (apart from large-scale hydro-electric plants) and make progress in implementing the EU directive on the promotion of wind power generation, biomass, geothermal energy and solar power, introducing binding minimum targets and enforcing a labelling system for energy (including electricity generated at fossil-fuel and nuclear power plants). Within the Kyoto period, the use of biomass must be doubled, that of wind and solar energy generation increased tenfold.
• Modification of the taxation on energy to make electricity from fossil fuel and nuclear power plants more expensive. Action designed to ensure that in the long term Austria meets 100% of its electricity needs from renewable energy sources.
• The Austrian government should prohibit hydrofluorcarbons and perfluorcarbons. All hydrofluorcarbons should be eliminated from the federal provinces’ subsidised housing and renovation schemes.
• No electricity should be imported from non-EU countries with power generating plants that do not comply with the state of the art.
• In the EU accession negotiations with candidate countries, the Energy Chapter should not be deemed completed if no solution has been implemented to significant safety shortcomings in nuclear power plants.

We call on the Austrian government to meet the following demands at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• Austria must ratify the Kyoto Protocol, approve a national climate protection plan, earmark at least ATS 1.2 billion from the current budget for climate protection, and earmark at least ATS 4 billion from the existing housing subsidies budget line for climate protection measures by the end of 2001.

• Before the autumn of 2002 the Austrian government should take the initial steps towards gauging the country’s taxation system to ecological needs (taxation on energy consumption, reduction of taxation on human labour, and fiscal instruments to promote ecological improvements such as the elimination of energy tax on alternative energy systems).

The term "food sovereignty" denotes every country’s right to produce its own foodstuffs in order to safeguard its food supplies. This entails the right to access to land, water, seeds, monetary loans and education, but it also implies land reform and sustainable land use. We advocate organic farming on a global scale and the promotion of small-scale farming units, both in Europe and in the countries of the South. Especially in rural areas, subsistence farming secures the food supplies for the local population. Notably projects and programmes involving farmers in the so-called developing countries need to be promoted, and special support must be given to indigenous women.

The detrimental environmental impact of industrial agriculture (e.g. soil erosion, pollution of ground water, loss of biodiversity) destroys the conditions needed for the production of a basic food supply and thus jeopardises food sovereignty for coming generations. Priority should be given to financial support for programmes which enable farmers to abandon chemically-based agriculture. The right to self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs must be safeguarded.

• We call for ecologically compatible and sustainable agriculture which safeguards the daily supply of basic foodstuffs.

• The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) should draw up a code of conduct relating to the right to food which would make it possible to cite human rights standards in dealings with transnational institutions and business enterprises.

• One prerequisite for producing foodstuffs on a sustainable basis and reducing poverty in the countries of the South is the access (rights) of the local population to natural resources.

We call for the following demands to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• In its bilateral contacts with Brazil, the Austrian government must bring pressure to bear to ensure the passage of land reform measures. Austria should subsequently espouse the cause of equitable land distribution in other countries of the South.

• Within the EU and at the follow-up conference of the World Food Summit in November 2001 the Austrian government should advocate the creation of a working group to draw up a code of conduct relating to the right to food.

• We call for the remuneration for services rendered by food suppliers on behalf of the environment and financial and technical assistance in switching to sustainable agriculture.

• Organic farming is that form of agriculture which inflicts least ecological damage on the environment. The long-term goal must be to switch the entire agricultural sector to organic farming. The area accounted for by organic farming in Austria should double by 2005.
• The ecological reform of Austria’s agricultural sector must be enshrined in a separate Federal Constitutional Law to be incorporated in the Austrian Constitution. Subsidies as well as marketing and sales strategies for this sector need to be enlarged and given priority.
• Genetic engineering as it relates to agriculture is not compatible with the principle of sustainability. Austria in particular and Europe in general are importing more and more genetically modified fodder. We call for an overall ban on the import of genetically modified seeds.
• Ecological minimum standards should be applied to all farming subsidies.
• There must be a drastic reduction in the use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers. Austria should introduce a tax on the use of pesticides and fertilisers by 2004.

We call for the following demand to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• The ecological reform of Austria’s agricultural sector must be enshrined in a separate Federal Constitutional Law to be incorporated in the Austrian Constitution.

Forests have a huge importance in that they serve as the habitat of animal and plant species, are major carbon resources and thus stabilise the global climate, store and cleanse the world’s reserves of fresh water, prevent soil erosion, landslides and floods, act as the habitat and food source for several hundred million people, provide inexhaustible supplies of medicinal plants, and harbour timber. Invaluable though they are, the forests are endangered by the impact of human action; most notably over-exploitation, deforestation, monoculture, slash-and-burn methods and the use of chemicals. Every minute a wooded area equivalent in size to thirty-five football fields is cleared. This detrimental impact not only destroys rain and primeval forests in developing countries; in Austria a disregard for the biological diversity of the woods and their importance are jeopardising their natural state in some places. Spruce monocultures, the felling of very valuable old trees, large-scale deforestation, and the use of pesticides are also damaging Austria’s woods and forests.

We therefore call on the Austrian government to counter these detrimental trends by implementing the following measures:

• Establishing a network of protected areas to ensure the preservation of biodiversity.

• Lending active support to international forestry-related NGOs (such as the Forest Stewardship Council) which comply with Agenda 21 and refusing support to NGOs which act in contravention of Agenda 21 (notably Chapter 16 thereof) in weakening indigenous groups.

• Drawing up a catalogue of criteria by means of which it will be possible to assess whether agricultural and forestry subsidies comply with the guidelines laid out in Agenda 21.
• In public-sector procurement etc. promoting timber and wood products which are known to originate from ecologically and socially compatible production.
• Establishing mechanisms (such as a certification scheme) which, against the background of rising timber imports, ensure that the timber comes from ecologically and socially compatible production.
• Promoting forestry measures which implement the EU’s FFH (fauna-flora-habitat) directive under the auspices of Austria’s rural development programme.

We call for the following demands to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• The Austrian Forestry Act ("Forstgesetz") must be amended, particularly to provide for the safeguarding of biodiversity. A contemporary definition of sustainability in the light of ecological, social and economic considerations needs to be enshrined in law.

• A Forestry Fund should be set up as an Austrian contribution to international efforts to protect the forests, on the lines of the National Forest Initiative – Third World ("Nationalinitiative Wald – Dritte Welt") established by the Austrian government in the wake of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio and assigned a budget of ATS 200 million.

The global economic order advocated by the WTO is based on the assumption that free trade automatically generates greater affluence for everyone. However, experience shows that, unless effective ecological and social constraints are in place, large sections of the population are pushed into ever deeper poverty, the destruction of the natural environment continues, and functioning local market structures are eroded. The distribution of power within the global economic order as expounded by the WTO for instance tends to favour the decline of prices for agricultural raw materials, and this aggravates the debt crisis in the so-called developing countries, which have been forced into the role of raw materials producers.

The Fair Trade principle advocates a socially and ecologically compatible form of market economy. It is founded upon the tenet of sustainable production upheld by ecological and social minimum standards. At the same time Fair Trade between North and South establishes partnership-based trade relations which avoid exploiting ecological and social resources and further depleting those scant financial resources which the countries affected have at their disposal for social programmes and servicing their debts – a depletion brought about by dumping prices for their export commodities.

• We call on the Austrian government to advocate the progressive incorporation of the principles of Fair Trade in the global economic order, notably in the stipulations of the WTO and of international trade accords like the Post-Lomé agreements.

• We demand that these principles be adopted in order effectively to combat the impoverishment of large sections of the population, to halt ecological destruction, and to make a substantial contribution to alleviating the debt crisis in the countries of the South.

• The rules governing the global economic order must not obstruct sustainable development. We call on the Austrian government to advocate the primacy of conventions in the fields of human and environmental rights over WTO agreements. We call for greater democracy in the international decision-making bodies like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the regional development banks, the WTO and the European Commission, also with regard to the representation of women in key decision-making posts and with regard to the inclusion of women’s interests and experiences in any consideration of environmental, social and economic issues.

We call for the following demands to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• The Austrian government has embarked on the right course in terms of supporting Fair Trade. Austria should set a good example to the other EU member countries and in connection with public-sector procurement should itself define the minimum social and ecological standards for Fair Trade products.

• All decisions relating to trade and agricultural policy which may have international repercussions must take account of the interests of developing countries. Such decisions should be formulated in collaboration with development co-operation experts.

Only if the requisite economic background conditions are put in place to trigger the equitable distribution of resources can development and environmental conservation be safeguarded on a global scale. In the poor countries of the South, there is often a lack of integrated planning covering the utilisation of resources. The people affected must be given a say in related decision-making processes and access to the use of substitutes which safeguard ecological sustainability and biodiversity. Women’s and human rights considerations make it imperative that those who maintain food supplies are assigned the rights of disposal over the land and the natural resources. Particular attention should focus on women working the land and on their special role in the sustainable use and conservation of biological resources. These groups must be ensured a share of the economic and commercial advantages to be derived from the use of traditional farming methods and expertise.

The above applies not only to biological resources but also to mineral resources. In the modern world mining ranks among those economic activities with the most severely detrimental impact on the environment and on the local (particularly indigenous) population. The environmental consequences of mining include the destruction of headwaters and forests, the pollution of rivers, and the loss of biodiversity. These are compounded by such social consequences as land loss, the disintegration of communities, human rights violations, health hazards, impoverishment and migration.

• We call on the Austrian government to advocate integrating the experience of the affected population – notably indigenous groups – in international fora, including preparatory conferences and activities related to the 2002 Sustainable Development Summit.

• We call on the Austrian government to commit itself to the cause of the sustainable utilisation of resources and to advocate this principle at the international level.

• The requisite economic background conditions will trigger the equitable distribution of resources. Within the space of five years binding models for ecological and social real cost accounting must be devised and implemented in the context of the global economic order. We call for an ecologically oriented fiscal reform which will tax excessively cheap non-renewable energy sources and remove the tax burden from human labour as an approach to resolving the ecological and social problems deriving from unemployment..

We call for the following demand to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• As its first step towards an ecologically oriented fiscal reform, the Austrian government should commission a scientific study on real cost accounting in the social and ecological fields. Its results should be available before September 2002 and should serve as the basis for the government’s position.

The destruction of the forests, the intensification of agriculture, the drainage of wetlands, the regulation of rivers, the overfishing of the seas – all of these are resulting in the decimation of the earth’s biodiversity. Every day some 100 animal and plant species become extinct world-wide.

In Austria more than 2,800 animal species appear on the Red list as in varying degrees endangered, extinct, exterminated or no longer extant. The same applies to over 60% of Austria’s ferns and flowering plants. One significant reason for the drastic reduction of biodiversity is the progressive loss of suitable habitats, which can be traced back to a number of factors. As one of the world’s most prosperous countries, Austria has an opportunity to demonstrate that the requisite protective measures and sustainable, ecologically compatible agriculture can make it possible to conserve biodiversity.

We therefore call on the Austrian government to implement the following measures to combat the above detrimental tendencies:

• Establishing a representative, adequately large and dense network of protected areas to conserve biodiversity, notably Natura-2000 areas.
• Conserving existing natural and quasi-natural habitats, small-scale farming and forestry units and biologically valuable small biotopes.
• Providing strategic support for environmentally compatible land use, rehabilitating impaired stretches of the natural environment, and introducing more effective protection for endangered indigenous species.
• Implementing the applicable EU laws relating to nature and rural conservation at the earliest possible opportunity in the form of federal and provincial legislation and harmonising provincial legislation at a sufficiently high level.
• Signing (Bonn Convention) and implementing international conventions on nature and rural conservation.
• Adopting effective measures on climate protection in view of the fact that climate change will further accelerate the irreversible extinction of indigenous species.
• Effecting an overall reduction in the level of pollutant penetration and the use of pollutant substances (herbicides, fertilisers).
• Assigning priority to nature conservation over road construction, housing, power plant construction and hydraulic engineering projects.
• Providing adequate support and funding for species and biotope protection programmes.

We call for the following demands to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• The Austrian government should sign and ratify the Convention on the Protection of Migratory Species (Bonn Convention) by the autumn of 2002 at the latest.

• The Austrian government takes the initiative in increasing by ATS 1 billion state and provincial expenditure on nature conservation and species protection.

Approximately 1.4 billion people, almost all of them living in rural areas in the so-called Third World, have to rely on seeds which they produce themselves and which have been developed by means of local selection and cultivation. The issue of patents on technologies and living organisms as globally legitimised by the WTO agreement on trade-related aspects of individual property rights (TRIPS Agreement) jeopardise the food supplies for large sections of the population and the conservation of biological diversity, but they also infringe on basic social, cultural and economic rights.

The TRIPS Agreement prevents millions of people suffering from malaria, tuberculosis or HIV from receiving treatment. It is also extremely questionable in gender terms, in that it forces primarily indigenous women and women working the land in the South out of the contexts in which they traditionally earn and fashion their livings and in that it exploits and commercialises the skills they have developed over centuries as well as their knowledge and experience.

• We call for a ban on patents for living organisms, on parts thereof and on their properties. The TRIPS Agreement must be amended to ensure that it helps to achieve internationally agreed development objectives.

• In the light of the above bio-political developments, we call on the Austrian government to commit itself to ensuring that other WTO agreements are made to comply with the stipulations enshrined in the Biosafety Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and that these are brought into line with other Rio conventions. International agreements must jeopardise neither biodiversity nor traditional knowledge.

We call for the following demand to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• The Austrian government should revise the TRIPS (Trade-related Aspects of Individual Property Rights) Agreement in collaboration with the NGOs and submit the revision to the TRIPS Council.

More effective international action, most notably to support disadvantaged people and countries and to halt increasing global inequality and marginalisation, is required if human rights and human development are to be achieved on a world-wide scale.

• We therefore call on the Austrian government to commit itself as a priority to upholding the right of all people to decent living standards. All people must be given the opportunity to exercise their right to personal integrity, health and an intact environment through participation and democracy. Women must be integrated into this process on an equal footing with men. As key players in the environmental and social policy of the countries of the South, they must be given a wide say and receive clear support.
• Austria must commit itself to the protection of migrant and refugee women.
• We call on the Austrian government to pledge itself to the advancement of economic, social and cultural human rights. The declaration issued by the 1993 Vienna Human Rights Conference already contains the demand for an optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The Austrian government should put its full weight behind supporting this demand.
• In accordance with the UN Human Rights Convention and the Rio principles, we call on the Austrian government to uphold a "rights and risks approach" in decisions on water, energy and mining projects. This means that all groups whose rights are affected must be integrated into the entire decision-making process - from the demand analysis, discussion of the available options and the impact analysis to the project development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation – to the extent to which they are exposed to the risks entailed.
• Child labour in general and its manifestations in the tourism industry and as the commercial sexual exploitation of children (also often linked with tourism) constitute a grave problem of global dimensions. We call on the Austrian government to put its weight behind international endeavours to ensure that all countries ratify and implement the agreements on the protection of children (Children’s Rights Convention).

We call for the following demand to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• We call on the Austrian government to ratify ILO Convention 169 on the protection of indigenous peoples before the follow-up summit in 2002.

The destruction of the environment has continued and poverty has spread further since 1992. It is the civilian population that has to bear the consequences. At the same time more and more groups within civil society are forming with two goals in mind: to draw attention to the above state of affairs; and to formulate meaningful recommendations in the fields of environmental, social and economic policy. We are convinced that engaged groups within civil society are an important factor and represent an enrichment of the social fabric. It has also become apparent since 1992 that issues and solutions relating to environment and development policy are closely bound up together and should in future be dealt with jointly.

• We therefore call on the Austrian government to lend far-reaching support to endeavours to strengthen democracy and to provide both financial and immaterial support to civil society in the countries of the South, in south-eastern Europe and in the CIS.
• At the same time we call for support for Austrian groups within civil society active in the social field and for their involvement in political decision-making in relation to the seven areas dealt with above.
• We call on the Austrian government to commit itself to an integrative environmental and development policy which pays equal regard to the protection of resources and to ecological needs, to social and to economic developments, to human rights and to ethnic and cultural considerations.

We call for the following demands to be met at the latest by September 2002, the date of the Sustainable Development Summit:

• We call on the Austrian government to involve representatives of civil society in the decision-making processes and in the structures designed to monitor compliance with the demands listed here.

• We call on the Austrian government to enable representatives of Austrian NGOs to attend international UN conferences (Rio + 10) and to include them in the Austrian delegations by taking over the costs.

Excerpt from: Forderungskatalog an die Österreichische Bundesregierung zum UN-Weltgipfel Umwelt und Entwicklung "Rio + 10". NGO-Plattform für Umwelt und Entwicklung. September 2001.