UNESCO’S
WORLD COMMISSION ON THE ETHICS OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE
AND TECHNOLOGY MEETS IN BERLIN
Paris,
December 17 UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific
Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) is holding its second session
in Berlin from today, December 17, to Wednesday, December 19,
at the invitation of the Government of Germany.
During
the three-day meeting, the Commission will present the results
of its work since its creation by UNESCO in 1998. Debates will
focus on: Ethics of Fresh
Water, chaired by the Earl of Selborne (United Kingdom), Ethics of Energy, chaired by James Peter
Kimmins (Canada), Ethics
of the Information Society, chaired by Ms M.R.C. Greenwood
(United States of America), and Ethics
of Outer Space, chaired by Jens Erik Fenstad (Norway). Alain
Pompidou, Member of the French Académie des technologies will
speak on The Evolution of
Space Policy for the Benefit of Mankind.
IA
Youth Forum on the Ethics
of Science and Technology will also take place during the
session, with presentations from young scientists from Germany,
Hungary, Nigeria, the Philippines and Sweden.
The
crucial issues dealt with by COMEST concern sources of imbalance
– potential problems or inequality resulting from the progress
of science and technology - and require an approach that combines
the ethical, scientific, economic and political dimensions. Today,
for example, slightly more than one billion people in industrialised
countries (about 20 percent of the world’s population), consume
nearly 60 percent of total energy supply. Of those households
in developing countries that have access to energy, three-quarters
rely on biomass fuels (such as charcoal, crop residues and cow
dung) and use it in ways that are damaging to health and the environment.
Access and management are also key ethical issues
when it comes to the planet’s vital fresh water resources. COMEST
notes, for example, that over the next 50 years, up to 70 percent
of the world’s people, most of whom are in developing countries,
will suffer water shortages. The cost of building and operating
water infrastructure is already beyond the resources of many of
these nations. Privatisation perhaps offers a way forward, but
poses the question over water prices: how to establish an effective
and equitable pricing policy that would ensure access for all
and protect supplies?
The
Commission’s report on the ethics of outer space stresses the
key role space technologies can play in improving the quality
of human life. Extraordinary advances in remote sensing and observation
could vastly improve monitoring of the environment and the planet’s
vital natural resources, for example, and already play a major
part in climate observation and weather forecasting. Since 1999,
there have been more than 1,200 “spin-off” products and processes
developed from NASA missions alone. Given this potential, COMEST
recommends that outer space be considered part of humanity’s heritage,
and proclaimed as a scientific territory at the disposal of all.
Its report stresses the need to guarantee free access to the knowledge
now available from space technologies, while protecting
intellectual property rights. It also raises the issue of space
debris and proposes the preparation of an international treaty
to limit space pollution. According to the UN Committee on the
Peaceful uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) there are now more than
8,500 catalogued objects in orbit around the Earth and 600 active
spacecraft.
In
its report on the ethics of the information society, COMEST notes
that while information technologies may help sustain democratic
governance, they are “nonetheless instrumental in making societies
more fragile”. COMEST examines the rights and responsibilities
of governments, engineers and designers and individuals in this
domain, along with issues such as access for all, and its implications.
The Commission’s report points out, for example, that bridging
the digital divide is not just a problem of finances, since connecting
the whole world would lead to an exponential increase in energy
consumption demand, “which does not appear to be ecologically
sustainable”.
The focus on the ethical aspects of water, energy,
information and space reflects the COMEST mandate to serve as
an intellectual forum for the exchange of ideas and experience,
to detect on that basis the early signs of risk situations and
to fulfil an advisory role for decision-makers.
The
Commission comprises 18 leading personalities in the fields of
science, philosophy, culture, law and politics, appointed in a
personal capacity, as well as the presidents of leading scientific
non-governmental organizations and the chairpersons of UNESCO’s
major science programmes.
The three-day meeting in Berlin will open with
addresses by Wolf-Michael Catenhausen, Parliamentary State Secretary
of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research of Germany,
Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, Tim Ingold (United
Kingdom), Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of
Aberdeen, and Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, President of Iceland (1980-1996)
and COMEST Chairperson.
