CONVENTION ON LONG-RANGE TRANSBOUNDARY AIR POLLUTION
PERSISTENT ORGANIC POLLUTANTS AND GLOBAL ISSUES
David Stone (Canada)
Introduction:
In the mid 1980s there was little general appreciation on the extent and
significance of long-range atmospheric transport relating to pollution from
persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Now we have two international
agreements. How did this come about? What have we learned and what are the
challenges and opportunities for the future?
History:
By the end of the 1980's, several regional organizations, such as OSPAR,
HELCOM and the International Joint Commission for the Great Lakes were
beginning to investigate atmospheric pathways in the context of strategies to
protect international waters from POPs.. At the same time, Arctic countries
were becoming aware that a number of POPs were being detected in their
northern ecosystems. There was a strong stimulus for concern because in some
areas the observed levels were similar to those associated with adverse effects in
certain biota.
Even more worrying was the human dimension. Emerging studies were
indicating that certain communities utilizing marine and freshwater foods in
Europe and in North America could be exposed to POPs at levels used by
national and international health authorities to indicate concern. Some of the
highest human body burdens were being found in Arctic indigenous coastal
communities where the maintenance of culture is intimately related to the
nutritional and social value of a traditional marine diet.
In most cases, these levels could not be due to local pollution sources. Longrange transboundary movement through natural vectors, particularly the
atmosphere provided the only possible explanation.
Clearly international action was needed to control POPs at their source. By
1989, several countries were individually trying to encourage international
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organizations to place POPs on their agendas. Results were slow but
presentations to the LRTAP Convention Executive Body in 1989 resulted in
Canada and Sweden being asked to prepare a precis of knowledge. After
considering this report, the Executive Body established a Task Force under the
leadership of Canada and Sweden to provide by 1994 an assessment for
evaluating the need for and possible modalities of action under the Convention.
From a Canadian perspective, this stage was greatly assisted by the
establishment in 1991 of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme
(AMAP), which enabled environmental scientists of the eight Arctic countries,
the Netherlands, Germany and the United Kingdom to work together in
collecting and assessing information on POPs, and to bring a consensus on the
significance of their observations to the political forum of Ministers at the Arctic
Environmental Protection Strategy (subsequently the Arctic Council).
Fortunately, many of the scientists involved in AMAP and in other relevant
regional organizations such as OSPAR, HELCOM, the Barcelona Convention,
and the International Joint Commission were also heavily engaged in the work
of the LRTAP POPs Task Force. The synergy resulting from this overlapping
mosaic enabled the production by the POPs Task Force of a compelling body of
information on the need for controls on POPs which enjoyed a strong consensus
nationally among Parties to the Convention.
The Task Force presented its assessment to the LRTAP Convention in 1994, and
by December 1995, a working group had been established to prepare a draft
Protocol. This led to the1998 Aarhus Protocol on POPs..
Returning in time to March 1992 when at the last preparatory conference for the
1992 Earth Summit, Iceland, was endeavouring to introduce the need for
international Action on POPs within Agenda 21. Iceland was unable to have the
concern registered in Chapter 19 (“Toxic Chemicals”). Prior to the Earth
Summit, UNEP Chemicals had not been established. However, the issue was
noted in Chapter 17 (“Oceans”). This provided Iceland with the opportunity
(under the establishment of the Global Plan of Action for the Protection of the
Marine Environment from Land-Based Activities) to present a POPs synthesis
based upon the LRTAP Substantiation Report. Their report led the United
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Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council in March 1995
to adopt Decision 18/32, which set in motion the train of events which
ultimately resulted in the signing of the global Stockholm Convention on POPs
in 2001.
Personal reflections on lessons learned:
Legally binding international environmental agreements are not developed and
maintained easily. The following are personal views on some of the most
important elements in the LRTAP POPs story.
•
The LRTAP Executive Body had the foresight to be adventurous and
look beyond it’s familiar “acidification” landscape. This willingness to
examine the science from an unfamiliar area (POPs) was vital to
establish a momentum which not only generated a new regional
Protocol, but which also fertilized global action elsewhere.
•
The wisdom of the LRTAP Executive Body practice of always building
policy action on a sound foundation of consensus science cannot be
over-emphasized. It enables policy objectives to be established to guide
the negotiation of agreement on strategies.
•
The importance of people. There are too many individuals to name, but
the Protocol was fortunate in being developed by a “relay team” of
great dedication and talent.
•
The POPs story has been an excellent example of what can be achieved
when intergovernmental organizations work together. The synergies
which moved the agenda forward (e.g., between OSPAR, HELCOM,
AMAP, and WHO) greatly assisted the development of the LRTAP
agreement. Now that both the Aahus POPs Protocol and the
Stockholm Convention have entered into force, the fertile ground for
similar synergy between these two agreements is being actively
addressed by UNEP and the LRTAP Convention.
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•
During the preparation of the draft Protocol, there was a tendency to
drift towards complex methodologies, but as negotiations moved to
conclusion there was a reversal towards simplicity. The simplest
solution to achieve a policy objective is far more likely to be feasible
for the greatest number of potential Parties than is an elegant but
complex alternative.
•
As in all negotiations, there was a wide scope in the degree of ambition
relating to actions on substances. The Protocol contained several
elements to accommodate this including periodic review of the use of
controlled but not banned substances. Although history appears to be
showing this to have been progressive, some other provisions
introduced by Parties to the Convention have still not been utilized
because those Parties have not ratified the agreement.
The future and global Issues.
In my mind, there are four major challenges for the future:
1) Striking new ground with reviews of sufficiency and effectiveness and
with the evaluation of proposals to add new substances: The Protocol
was designed to stand the test of time. In order to guide the nature of such
evolution, the agreement includes provisions:
a) to inform the Parties of the sufficiency and effectiveness the
Protocol. This is achieved by review of inter alia their collective and
individual compliance with their obligations, the state of emissions, and
the state of the environment relative to POPs; and,
b) to modify obligations for substances already in the Protocol annexes,
and to add additional substances to those annexes.
The Executive Body Work Plans for 2004 and 2005 contain elements for the
Working Group on Strategies and Review and the Task Force on POPs
related to these topics which may result within one or two years with requests
to modify the Protocol.
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2) Managing change to the Protocol: Although the Protocol and
(Executive Body Decisions) describe how proposals for changes to the
Protocol are introduced, examined, and decided upon, the agreement is silent
about whether or not we should strive for any synchronization for the timing
of entry into force for agreed upon changes. For example, do we wish
changes to enter into force according to the sequence in which they are
introduced which will potentially result in a complex overall pattern of
ratification by Parties, or should we follow a strategy such as the periodic
“packaging” of changes?
3) Striking a balance between ambition and capacity: To be effective, an
international environmental agreement should stimulate action. However,
little is achieved if the level of ambition of the agreement exceeds the
capacity of potential parties to meet the obligations. Similarly, it will be
ineffective if the obligations are insufficient to address the agreement’s
objective. The present POPs Protocol has twenty one ratifications. A
significant challenge for the Executive Body in the future will be to find
strategies which can simultaneously encourage more ratifications without
stifling the possibility for the Protocol to further evolve to increase its
sufficiency (including the possible introduction of new substances).
4) The future role of the LRTAP POPs Protocol in a global context. The
LRTAP Convention POPs Protocol is no longer the only comprehensive
international agreement dealing with POPs. We now have the Stockholm
Convention. What are the implications for the LRTAP Protocol in the
future? To begin to answer this question it to be important to consider some
very basic attributes of the two agreements relative to our scientific
understanding of POPs:
The Stockholm Convention
a) POPs are a global issue which the Stockholm Convention with it’s
global reach has been designed to address;
b) To achieve global action, the Stockholm Convention must follow a
strategy of actions which is mindful of the very wide range of capacity
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and economic development of its Parties.
LRTAP Protocol
a) The LRTAP Convention is a “semi” hemispheric zonal agreement
which is therefore unable to address the global dimension;
b) There is an emerging understanding of the environmental movement
and partitioning of POPs which is revealing the significance of the
hemispheric zonal movement of many of these substances. This is
suggesting that zonal environmental levels have much to do with zonal
emissions; and,
c) The range of capacity and economic development of LRTAP
Convention Parties is less than it is for the Stockholm Convention, with
consequential implications on the types of control actions that may be
practical. Actions which may be implementable under LRTAP may not
be feasible in a global context.
Therefore my personal answer to the question on the future role of the
LRTAP POPs Protocol in a global context is to see major opportunities for
complementary and mutually supportive actions between this agreement and
the Stockholm Convention. The LRTAP Convention has obvious strengths,
active or latent, within the UN ECE region. Furthermore, there is a
tantalizing possibility for plans to address the zonal hemispheric aspects of
the POPs issue. Such planning could include reaching out to regional air
pollution networks in zonal hemispheric regions outside of the Convention.
Conclusions:
There has been much to celebrated at the twenty fifth anniversary of the
LRTAP Convention and the achievements on POPs have provided a worthy
chapter in the story. However, having created the Protocol, it must now be
cherished if it is to achieve the objectives we gave it. This will be a
challenging but rewarding task that I am sure the Parties will fulfill with the
same enthusiasm and ingenuity that they have shown in the past.