U.N.-Linked Panel to Push Measures for ‘Our Common Future’ : Drive to Protect Environment Launched

Almost three years after it was convened, a 21-member commission headed by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland on Monday presented one of the most ambitious and unusual programs ever devised for halting the deterioration of the world environment.

The program, contained in a 383-page report entitled “Our Common Future,” questions national policies, suggests an overhaul of the present system of development aid and investment and promotes the idea of “sustainable growth” that does not damage the environment.

It labels as “unsustainable” the consumption patterns in industrialized nations and finds that ecological problems in developing countries are directly linked to poverty.

The World Commission On Environment and Development was established as an independently funded body loosely linked to the United Nations but not under its control. More than a third of the commission’s funding reportedly has come from the Japanese government. Canada, the Scandinavian countries, India and a number of private organizations, including the Ford Foundation, have also supported the project.

The commission calls for the U.N. General Assembly to transform its recommendations into what it calls “a U.N. Program of Action on Sustainable Development.”

“We offer governments and international institutions a challenging agenda for change,” Brundtland said in presenting the report. “We hope that it will achieve its purpose of generating the debate and discussion which can revitalize international cooperation.”

The report appears to contain few radically new ideas, but its scope and style of presentation are tailored to achieve maximum possible impact.

Brundtland will fly to Washington today to meet with congressional leaders. On Wednesday, she is scheduled to meet with President Reagan.

Next month, the report will be formally presented to the European Communities; to Comecon, the Communist economic bloc, and to regional organizations in Africa, Asia and Latin America. It is expected to be taken up by the General Assembly in the fall.

Officials admitted that the extensive program of presenting the report is aimed in part at averting the fate of previous commissions’ reports, which were received with minimal results.

As examples, they cited the report of a 1980 commission headed by former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt on improving cooperation between industrialized and developing nations, and a 1982 commission report on global disarmament headed by the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.

“We are going to be talking to prime ministers and leaders, not only environment ministers,” Brundtland emphasized. “They will find compelling reasons (for change) here,” and as she spoke, she held up a copy of the report.

Hearings in 10 Countries

Officials connected with the commission said that public hearings were conducted in 10 countries before the report was written and that they hope this will add to its influence.

“This report has different origins from Brandt and Palme,” said Jim MacNeill, the commission’s secretary general and former Canadian minister for urban affairs. “It stems from public testimony and from a growing frustration that government institutions are not working. There are a number of leading governments committed to it, and a number of groups have pledged to keep up pressure in other countries.”

Clearly attempting to avoid predictions of gloom and of a repeat of past confrontations on environmental issues, Brundtland stressed that the commission’s conclusions are not pessimistic.

“We found no absolute limits to growth,” she said. “We found instead limits imposed by the impacts of present technologies. . . . But we have the ingenuity to change technologies and policies, and change we must.”

Among the principal conclusions and recommendations of the report are these:

--Promotion of the idea of “sustainable development” to make it an accepted principle of governments and international lending agencies.

--Consideration of a new lending agency linked to the World Bank to finance pollution control, repair environmental damage and invest in sustainable development.

--Rejection of agricultural subsidies that encourage harvest surpluses in industrialized countries and the transfer of centers of food production to food-deficit areas of the world.

--Fundamental shifts in national energy policies to attain greater efficiency from reduced energy use. Nuclear power, the report states “is only justifiable if there are solid solutions to the presently unsolvable problems. . . .”

--Implementation of guidelines for shipping banned, restricted or untested chemicals and greater international cooperation in handling and disposing of chemical wastes.

--A U.N. commitment to a universal declaration on environmental protection and sustainable growth.

“To secure our common future we need a new international ethic that looks beyond narrow and short-sighted national ambitions,” Brundtland said. “It is the only way we can pursue our own self-interests on a small and closely knit planet.”