U.S. Threat to Thwart Toxics Treaty

U.S. attempting to discourage European Union support for developing countries - known as G-77 for Group of 77 - that aim to eliminate POPs rather than just reduce them. 

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Subject:   Bad Boys, Bad Boys, What are you going to do when they come for you?
Date:        Fri, 04 Feb 2000 10:01:24 -0500
From:        Stephen Tvedten <steve@getipm.com>
Organization:     Get Set Inc. (www.getipm.com)

To:     Lyndon Hawkins <hawkins@empm.cdpr.ca.gov>
          State of California, Department of Pesticide Regulation
          Integrated Pest Management

Lyndon, the Environmental News Service just released the following story: Leaked Letter Reveals U.S. Threat to Thwart Toxics Treaty.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, February 3, 2000 (ENS) - A letter from the U.S. State Department to the European Union reveals that the United States is demanding that the European Union drop its current commitment to eliminate some of the world’s most toxic chemicals.

The letter was leaked today by the international environmental group Greenpeace.

In March, the fourth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Persistant Organic Pollutants (POPs) will be held in Bonn, Germany. The Committee was created in 1998 to develop international standards to combat POPS in the environment.

POPs are synthetic byproducts of industrial processes that break down very slowly in the environment and can build up in living tissues. Some of them are known human carcinogens; others cause neurological disorders, respiratory diseases and interfere with normal reproduction.

Incinerator in Chicago, Illinois emits dioxins and furans, byproducts of waste burning (Photo courtesy Lake Michigan Federation - can be seen on the ENS website)

The 12 POPs now addressed by this agreement in formation are: the ("registered") pesticides aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex and toxaphene; the industrial chemicals polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexachlorabenzine which is also a ("registered") pesticide; and the combustion byproducts dioxins and furans.

Greenpeace says the U.S. attempting to discourage European Union support for developing countries - known as G-77 for Group of 77 - that aim to eliminate POPs rather than just reduce them. (The POISON "industry" sure has a lot of "influence".)

The letter reveals that United States is urging the European Union (EU) to vote with the U.S., and do no more than reduce the toxic chemicals at the March negotiations of the global persistent organic pollutants (POPs) treaty in Bonn.

"The U.S. is seriously concerned that, unless the U.S. and the EU countries change tactics before INC-4 [the March meeting], POPs negotiations will not conclude this year as scheduled and may collapse," the letter reads.

"The U.S. views the purpose of the POPs negotiations as fundamentally bringing G-77 commitments on POPs as close as possible to those most [industrialized] countries have in their domestic legislation. We are concerned, however, that after three sessions, negotiations have focused almost exclusively on differences" among the industrialized countries, the letter continues. "These differences have focused on attempts to go beyond LRTAP/POPs."

LRTAP is the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, an agreement signed in 1979 that entered into force in 1983. It sets out general principles for cooperation on air pollution abatement and establishes a framework for coordinating research and information exchange between Parties. The Parties to LRTAP include the U.S., Canada, and West and East European countries, including Russia.

Greenpeacers demonstrate against toxic POPs found in the Arctic far from their places of origin. Summer 1999. (Photo courtesy Greenpeace - available on the ENS website.)

Most important, the LRTAP established a cooperative program for monitoring and evaluating air pollutants in Europe. A number of protocols have been negotiated using the LRTAP framework, including reduction of sulfur emissions (1985 and 1994)), control of nitrogen oxides (1988), and control of emissions of volatile organic compounds (1991).

The U.S. letter warns the European Union against pushing for rules on POPs that would exceed the guidelines created by the LRTAP convention.

"We must focus our attention on negotiating with the developing countries. The attempt in the negotiations to date to go beyond agreed LRTAP principles among ourselves distracts from this focus and directly threatens our ability to bring the G-77 into a global POPs framework," the letter reads.

In particular, the U.S. letter says, industrialized countries should concentrate on helping developing countries come to a realistic expectation regarding the financial assistance they can expect from other countries towards making substantial reductions in POPs levels in the environment.

Developing countries "must also accept that the POPs issue is not a global commons issue to the same degree as ozone depletion or climate change," the letter says. Industrialized countries are "not prepared to bear all the cost of implementing POPs."

"Failure to make significant progress on this issue at INC-4 could stall negotiations," the letter warns.

"This letter exposes a cynical attempt by the U.S. to bully other countries into allowing toxic emissions to continue," said Greenpeace toxic campaigner, Wytze van der Naald. "The question is whether the EU can publicly defend becoming the willing puppet of the well known U.S. negotiation technique, and watch it watering down international treaties and then refusing to ratify and follow them."

"Whilst toxic chemical pollutants remain the main problem of the negotiations, the U.S. is fast becoming the major obstacle to international solutions," he added.

On Monday, the U.S. will meet with European Union and other industrialized countries at the headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to informally discuss the European Union position on POPs.

"The EU must refuse to be manipulated and continue to forge ahead and phase out toxic pollution as they committed themselves to under European agreements," urged van der Naald.

The entire text of the U.S. letter is available online at: http://www.greenpeace.org/%7Etoxics/html/content/usnote.html

Well Lyndon, it is becoming very clear that "someone" does not want any real (safe and effective) solutions to the world's ongoing pest and "registered" pesticide pollution problems. "Someone" obviously wants to continue on with buSINness as usual. "Someone" wants everyone to keep on "treating" their resistant pest problems with your dangerous "registered" POISONS rather than actually controlling pests with safe and effective (less expensive and non-polluting) alternatives. Lyndon, do you know who that "someone" is?

Respectfully, Stephen L. Tvedten