Notes from the NGO work meeting

March 4-5, 2002
REC Szentendre, Hungary

The work meeting of 6 NGOs conducting research on implementation of the principles of the Aahrus Convention to the Climate Change Issues has been hold on 4-5 March 2002 at REC. The objectives of the meeting were as follows:

• To report on the findings in each country;
• To share the experience obtained through the research;
• To define the outline and content of the Regional Report based on the National Reports;
• To discuss the agenda and the list of future activities for the upcoming Advisory Committee;
• To discuss the possibility of cooperation with The Access Initiative on the issue of further evaluation of countries' performance in the field of Access to Information (hereafter AI) and Public Participation (hereafter PP ) in decision-making in environmental matters.

Each NGO prepared three products for the meeting: a completed list of assessed indicators of AI and PP related to Climate Change, a National Report, a short version of National Report.

Poland. The first speaker, Mr. Andrzej Kassenberg , Institute for Sustainable Development (Poland), described the Polish situation with AI and PP as a reversed pyramid: at the level of the Polish National Legislation, National Communications and GHG Inventories the situation is rather welcoming. However, it worsens at the level of policy development and facilities' reporting. At the level of investment-related policies (AIJ and JI) information is available only on completed projects, no information is available or public participation possible at the stage of development of those policies. The speaker pointed out that the officials are poorly informed about their responsibilities in information provision to the general public. Another important finding was the lack of the public interest in AI and PP even in those cases, when the government technically provides the ways to participate (e.g. there were only two comments for the policy draft on renewables).

Romania. Ms. Michaela Dupleac,Terra Millenium III, reported on the Rumanian case. Please, see the file with slides of the presentation. The speaker reported on the case when public initiative led to the adoption of a Law regarding free access to information of public interest. The case proves that the demand -side of the Aarhus Convention is of great importance, since, for example, it can enhance the adoption of the legislative acts necessary in the country. At the same time the speaker drew the attention to the lack of cooperation among governmental officials and, especially, Climate Change Focal Point.

Slovakia. The Slovakian case has been presented by Ms Sonya Orbtalova, Energy Center Bratislava. Please, see the file with the slides for the presentation. She reported about progress in AI and PP over last years: cooperativeness of governmental officials (all requests are processed within10 days, special telephone green-line), improved quality of international reports, wide access to the Internet for the general public. She mentioned that the demand-side of the Aahrus Convention in Slovakia already started to develop. For example, Friends of Earth is an organization of lawyers on consulting on AI; Ecoforum is an association of Environmental NGOs. At the same time the speaker pointed out to the low public awareness and the lack of environmental education in Slovakia.

Bulgaria. Ms. Biliana Petkova, EnEffect, presented the Bulgarian case. Please, see the presentation slides.

Estonia. Ms Helene Poltimae, SEI, presented the Estonian case. It Estonian the situation with AI is more developed than that of PP, though the major groups of stakeholders are involved in policies preparation. Estonia was the only country which published a press-release about the submission of the Third National Communication. As a big achievement one can consider the wide spread of the Internet facilities as well as the content of environmental websites itself. The speaker also highlighted the high activity of environmental NGOs in Estonia.

Hungary. On the contrary, the Hungarian presenter, Mr. Robert Fidrich, Hungarian National Society for Conservationists, pointed out that the environmental NGOs are not active in Hungary, especially in the field of environmental education. The Kyoto Protocol related activities ( NC and GHG Inventories preparation, AIJ projects) are undertaken in Hungary despite the fact, that Hungary has not signed the Protocol.

General Comments.
During the discussion on the participants' presentations, the following tendencies in the implementation of Aahrus Convention in the field of Climate Change in CEE countries have been identified.

1. Legal framework.
A majority of CEE countries are signatories both to the Aahrus Convention and Kyoto Protocol, except Hungary, which has not signed the Protocol. Romania and Slovakia have already ratified the Protocol.
As to the requirements imposed by the Aahrus Convention, the necessary legal framework for the access to information and public participation in decision making is in place. At the same time the following weaknesses have been identified:

• There is no supporting regulation for practical implementation of the Convention norms. Different public authorities determine their level of openess by themselves, hence, one, looking for information, depends on their decisions;
• There is no clear definition of the term "public authority" in the national legal systems. It is absolutely necessary, since the certain clauses of Convention on state security and business information leave the room for different interpretations of the definition given in the Convention itself;
• There is no legal mandate for public participation in policies with impact on GHG emissions (such as energy, transportation and other related policies), nor in investment-related activities such as AIJ..

2. National Communications and GHG Inventories.
The achievements related to the National Communications (hereafter NC) and GHG Inventories are:

• All countries have already submitted the Third National Communication or are in the process of their preparation;
• GHG Inventories are provided on a regular basis;
• The methodology of GHG Inventories is in accordance with that of IPCC. However, due to the lack of data not all the requirements of IPCC can be fulfilled, as reported by Slovak participant;
• In all the countries the NCs are available through the web-sites of MoEs.

At the same time the following weaknesses have been identified:

• There is no specific legal mandate for the NCs and Inventories in the national legal systems. The necessity of their preparation and submission is implicit, i.e. the fact that a country is a signatory to the Protocol obliges it to prepare the above-mentioned documents;
• There is no specific state budget allocation for preparation of those documents;
• Data time lag is still 2 years on average;
• In Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania NCs are not available in the national languages;
• GHG Inventories provide information on the aggregated level. However, the disaggregated data are not available from MoEs or other sources;
• There has been no public discussion on the NCs before submission to UNFCCC (except Romanian case, where NC was revised by the special committee, consisting of climate-related NGOs);
• There has been no media coverage on NCs releases ( except Estonia, which issued a press-release about the submission of Third NC);
• There are no short reader-friendly summaries of NC, easily understandable by non-experts.

3. Public Participation in Policy Making:
The analysis of possibilities for public participation in decision-making demonstrated the following:

• There is no legal mandate for public participation in the policies' development (except Poland);
• The CEE governments prefer to discuss the development of policies with experts who are working in the field, rather than with general public;
• No information is disseminated beforehand about the intentions of the government to start a new policy development;
• Even if ways to provide comments exist for the general public ( for example, via Internet), there is no evidence that there exist the systems of processing those comments and giving a feedback;

4.Access to Information:

• Information on climate-related issues is available in general both in electronic and paper versions;
• However, the information is provided in a passive way, i.e. without active involvement of interested stekeholders, and it is not well structured;
• Government capacity building is inefficient;
• Access to the Internet is limited due to the high prices in majority of the countries

5. Facilities reporting on GHG emissions:

• Facilities are obliged to provide information to the statistical office;
• For general public the opportunities vary accross the countries. In the Polish case information was provided upon request, in Romania it is possible to obtain aggregated information about 3 enterprises, in Bulgaria information could be obtained on fuel use but not on GHG emissions.

Recommendations.
Upon the analysis of strong and weak points in access to information and public participation in decision-making in Climate Change related issues, the workshop participants recommend the following:

1. To develop the demand side of the Aahrus process.
As the reports show, not only the supply side of Aahrus Convention is insufficient (as it ensures only passive provision of information), but also general public is either not aware about their rights or not interested in the subject. To overcome this situation the governments should:

• raise awareness about the climate change related issues by linking them with local problems;
• provide funding for NGOs': their activities related to collecting information ( for example, for their participation in and analysis of the governmental and parliamentary debates on environmental issues);
• send the information to the interested environmental groups about new policy development or drafting of the climate-related documents and invite them for comments and participation;
• create a system for submission of comments, processing them and giving feedback.

2. To improve the national legal systems, i.e. to adopt the missing legal mandates for public participation listed above ( on policies' development, on JI etc).
3. To train public authorities' staff on the Aahrus Convention.
4. To use human resources more efficiently by streamlining responsibilities for communicating with the public on climate issues. In order to ease the load on Climate Focal Points, they can be asked to produce annual summaries of Inventories and, when appropriate, NCs. The responsibilities for communicating these documents to the public might rest with the PR person of the MoEs.
5. To make Facility reporting more open.
Currently GHG emitting facilities or the companies-owners have to report their GHG emissions only to the statistical office. This information is normally not available for the public. Thus, the governments should:

• create the incentives to open companies' data on GHG emissions to the general public ( for example, to allow the participation in flexible mechanisms under Kyoto Protocol only for companies with this system of GHG reporting);
• be the source of information on companies' GHG emissions for the sake of accuracy, since a company can pursue its own interests through under- or over - reporting.