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March 31, 2000

Bonn POPs talks fall short of expectations

Talks aimed at an international treaty on getting rid of the chemicals that poison country food in the Arctic went slowly last week.

RENATE ELL
Special to Nunatsiaq News

BONN — If a symbol were to be chosen for the the fourth and penultimate round of negotiations on an international convention in Bonn, Germany on eliminating the use of persistent organic pollutants, or "Pops," it would have to be the square bracket.

This set of punctuation marks encloses many controversial words and passages set out in a draft convention that delegates from 121 countries worked with last week. And the number of square brackets did not decrease by as much as many people had hoped for during last week's negotiations at Germany's former capital, Bonn.

John Buccini, an Environment Canada bureaucrat who chaired the plenary sessions, showed enormous patience and endurance.

Article after article of preliminary text was called and each of the 121 nations had a chance to comment on their content or wording.

Some of the 501 delegates felt that Buccini was sometimes too patient with some off-topic or lengthy comments.

But clearly, most of the delegates struggled hard to find language capable of withstanding the scrutiny of international law experts while reflecting an intention to free the world of POPs as completely as possible.

Novice delegates

Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, Canada, also pointed out that many delegates are novices in the negotiations, having not taken part in earlier meetings, which also seemed to slow down the discussions.

"When you are dealing with so many countries which have their own aspirations and ideas and are working from different industrial bases and social requirements, it's very complex," said Steve Hart of Environment Canada, head of the Canadian delegation.

One of the most difficult issues was the question of "elimination" of Pops

"What we are talking about now is what qualifiers we can put on the word 'elimination,' "Steve Hart said.

Total elimination is impossible, since two of the "dirty dozen," dioxins and furans, are unintended byproducts of combustion whose production cannot be totally avoided.

In its own laws, Canada uses the expression "virtual elimination," meaning: as little as technically feasible.

A special working group discussed the issue outside the plenary and came up with several suggestions, among them "where technically and economically feasible" and "ultimate elimination," supported by Canada.

Money a big issue

Another issue was money, especially the question of which international institution should handle the money that the rich industrialized nations of world are expected to donate to poor Third World nations to help them make the transition away from using Pops-laden substances.

Some nations, among them Germany, favor the idea of using the Global Environmental Facility, or GEF, to handle that money.

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a financial mechanism that provides funding to developing countries for activities that aim to protect the global environment. It is jointly implemented by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the World Bank.

On the other hand, a group of developing countries known as the "G77," together with China, want a a new institution that would only organize funding for projects related to the Pops convention.

DDT must be replaced

A lot of money will be needed to find a solution to the most urgent problem in the context of Pops use: a replacement for DDT.

The insecticide is still the first choice to kill the mosquitoes that transmit malaria, which kills more than a million children alone in tropical countries each year.

Pyrethroids are presently favored, but they are more expensive. And in South Africa, the mosquitoes developed a resistance against a pyrethroid within only five years, while they never became resistant against DDT during 50 years of usage.

The country switched back to DDT only four weeks ago. An immunization against the dangerous disease, which would be the best solution to think of, is still not in sight. Therefore, the exemption in the convention for the usage of DDT for public health purposes until a feasible alternative has been found is not debated.

"Of course, we will not be party to an agreement that will hurt others," says Sheila Watt-Cloutier.

She said that she believes the aboriginal delegations from North America became the "conscience"of the convention during the talks.

Last round in South Africa

Many questions remained to be solved during the months to come, before the delegations meet again in South Africa during the first week of December this year for their last round of negotiations.

After the treaty is reached, new chemicals besides the "dirty dozen" can become subject to the convention if they meet the chemical and physical criteria agreed to by the parties.

The convention will come into force as soon as 50 nations have ratified it.

Hart pointed out that readily available funds to finance the creation of chemicals inventories and to support the introduction alternatives in public health or agriculture in developing countries will enable some of these countries to ratify the convention at all. Canada has put $20 million into a trust fund at the World Bank that is available for such projects as of now.

"We will work very strenuously from now to South Africa", Sheila Watt-Cloutier said on the final day in Bonn. "In South Africa we hope we will make our last and powerful pitch, and we hope that we will be able to create some strong support while we are there."

Renate Ell is a science journalist living in Pfaffenhofen, Germany.

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