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PANUPS: Actions Against POPs Needed
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P A N U P S
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Pesticide Action Network
North America
Updates Service
http://www.panna.org/panna/
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Governments Agree: Evidence Justifies Actions Against POPs
June 3, 1996
Representatives of 36 governments met in Canberra, Australia
in March 1996, and agreed that available scientific evidence
demonstrates the need for international action on persistent
organic pollutants (POPs). The meeting took place under the
auspices of the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety,
and placed emphasis on a shortlist of 12 chemicals including
dioxins and furans, PCBs, DDT, chlordane, toxaphene, hexa-
chlorobenzene and several other organochlorine pesticides*.
The countries further agreed to prepare a formal
recommendation on this matter for the annual meeting of the
Governing Council of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP),
which will take place in January 1997.
The Canberra Meeting is the latest manifestation of growing
international support for a legally binding global instrument
for the reduction and/or elimination of persistent organic
pollutants (see PANUPS, December 4, 1995). Governments have
expressed similar sentiments at other recent international
meetings:
* The UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) created the
Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution which is
considering action on the same shortlist of POPs as UNEP.
European countries as well as the U.S., Canada and Japan are
involved.
* The June 1995 International Experts Meeting on POPs, hosted
by Canada and the Philippines with 100 participants from over
40 countries concluded, "There is enough scientific
information on the adverse human health and environmental
impacts of POPs to warrant coherent action at the national,
regional and international level. This will include bans,
phaseouts and provisional severe restrictions for certain
POPs."
* In November 1995, one hundred countries, meeting in
Washington DC to discuss international action to protect the
marine environment, also called for a global, legally binding
instrument on POPs. UNEP's 1995 Governing Council Meeting
asked the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety,
together with several international agencies, to review the
need for global action on POPs and to develop proposals for
action. The Canberra meeting's decisions represent an
important step in that direction.
The Forum is organizing a second meeting which will take
place in June 1996 in the Philippines. The June meeting will
evaluate alternatives to POPs sources as well as costs,
benefits, risks and response strategies. The meeting will
then formulate a recommendation to UNEP detailing proposed
policies and mechanisms for global action. One hundred Forum-
member countries will then be given an opportunity to comment
by July 31. In August, the Forum will forward to UNEP both
its recommendation and also a summary of country comments.
This schedule will give UNEP time to review the
recommendations and prepare a proposal for action at its
January 1997 meeting.
Greenpeace, Pesticide Action Network and other NGOs are
seeking an international agreement on POPs that places a fair
share of the economic burden on industrialized countries. A
global POPs instrument must combine measures that phase out
production and use of highly restricted organochlorine
pesticides like DDT, toxaphene and others (measures whose
social and economic burden falls predominantly on developing
countries) with measures that address POPs-generating
technologies in heavily industrialized countries. Of
particular concern are dioxin-generating processes like the
manufacture and use of PVC plastics, the chlorine bleaching
of pulp and paper, and the incineration of chlorinated
wastes. These technologies represent major global POPs
sources, ones that industrialized countries are exporting
aggressively to the Third World.
*The shortlist of 12 POPs includes aldrin, chlordane, DDT,
dieldrin, dioxins, endrin, furans, heptachlor,
hexachlorobenzene (HCB), mirex, PCBs and toxaphene.
Source: International Toxics Investigator, Second Quarter,
1996.
Contact: For a more detailed background paper, write to POPs
c/o International Toxics Investigator, Greenpeace, 1436 U
Street NW, Washington DC 20009; phone (202) 462-1177; fax
(202) 462-4507; email greenpeace.usa@green2.greenpeace.org.
Greenpeace will also send the June 22 UNEP recommendation in
time for you to send comments to your government urging them
to support strong global action.
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