ABSTRACT
A concern for the well-being of the environment in the ECECs began to grow during the 1980s. In many of these countries environmental legislation was passed during the central planning period, but its practical implementation remained very feeble. Often a single administrative authority was a major pollutant yet at the same time responsible for its prevention. Only after 1989 did significant changes in environmental conditions begin to take place, as recorded in the Kyoto Protocol (Table 19.1). Unfortunately, the Kyoto Protocol has been described as a sketchy agreement by rich countries to cut greenhouse gases to below 1990 levels. In Kyoto, in the eagerness to frame an accord, the Protocol failed to answer the question as to which countries should make the cuts to everyone’s satisfaction. Only developed countries agreed to binding targets for emission reductions while the others agreed to nothing. Thus with no agreement over the question as to which countries should be involved, the UN conference on global warming at Buenos Aires in November 1998 was able to disregard the major question of how to make the cuts (Anon., 1998a).
