Global Policy Forum

Delegates Adopt Treaty on Top Pollutants

Delegates from 127 countries formally adopted a global treaty banning 12 highly toxic chemicals on Tuesday, but the success was overshadowed by tension between the United States and Europe over environmental policies. With the bang of a gavel, the pact on persistent organic pollutants, also known as POPs, was adopted by consensus after nearly two years of sometimes tense negotiations. A signing ceremony was scheduled for Wednesday.

"We must put a stop to the use of poisons which threaten plants, animals and the environment in which we live," Prime Minister Goeran Persson of Sweden said in welcoming more than 500 delegates from 127 countries to the two-day signing conference. The treaty is aimed at eventually eliminating all hazardous chemicals but lists 12 widely known as "the dirty dozen" for priority action.

The chemicals, most of them pesticides, such as DDT, also include PCBs and dioxins. They have been shown to contribute to birth defects, cancer and other problems in humans and animals.

The treaty has been endorsed by President George W. Bush, giving him some environmental points from European leaders and environmentalists worldwide who have criticized his rejection of the 1997 Kyoto global warming treaty. But while praising the US administration for its strong endorsement of the chemicals treaty, Environment Minister Kjell Larsson of Sweden reiterated his disappointment over the Kyoto accord, which was intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

"It's quite sad that we won't be able apparently to get a strong common answer globally to the enormous challenge we are now facing in an area that is truly global - climate change," Mr. Larsson said at a news conference. The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency, Christie Whitman, who was in Stockholm to sign the treaty, said proposals for alternative measures to address climate change were coming. The administration maintains that the Kyoto treaty would harm the US economy and would not receive congressional approval needed for ratification anyway. Mr. Bush "is fully prepared and enthusiastic to participate in initiatives that will actually receive ratification," Mrs. Whitman said.

Environmental activists applauded adoption of the chemical treaty but said it would be only a beginning and urged quick ratification and implementation by governments and the eventual addition of more chemicals to the list. "What now remains is turning words on paper into action, especially in the United States," said a Greenpeace spokesman, Rick Hind.

Mr. Persson also called on his colleagues to ratify the accord quickly and to give it strong financial support. "Dangerous substances do not respect international or national borders," he said. "They can only be fought with common strategies."

Production and use of most of the chemicals are to be banned as soon as the treaty takes effect, following ratification by at least 50 countries - a process expected to take four to five years. Most of the chemicals covered in the treaty no longer are used in industrial countries. But they remain popular in developing countries, break down slowly and travel easily in the environment. Traces of many of them are found in pristine areas of the Arctic after having been transported by air currents.

About 25 countries would be allowed to use DDT to combat malaria under guidelines from the World Health Organization until they can develop safer solutions. The chemicals covered by the treaty are aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs), hexachlorobenzen, dioxins and furans.

"The 12 POPs are travelers without passports," said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program. "They are a threat for people in regions where those products were never used or produced," he said. The treaty was completed in Johannesburg last December after marathon negotiations guided by the United Nations Environment Program that began in Montreal in 1998. (AP, AFP) Cheney Seeks Industry Support

Mike Allen of The Washington Post reported from Washington:

Vice President Dick Cheney went before 375 officials from the nuclear industry Thursday to ask for support for Mr. Bush's energy policy and to promise that nuclear power would be an important part of the solution. Mr. Cheney said the policy assumes significant savings from conservation and increased use of renewable energy sources such as sun and wind, but he said they would not be enough to meet the nation's energy needs. "Bottom line is, we still have inadequate supplies, and the only way to close that gap is to generate more electric power," he said.

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