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Polluters
Must Inform Citizens
BY
RAMESH JAURA (IDN)
A
new international treaty requiring industries to inform citizens about
the nature and quantity of pollutants they emit into the air will
enter into force on October 8, some two months in run-up to the UN
climate change conference in Copenhagen.
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Since
the pact also obliges factories releasing large quantities of greenhouse gases
known to contribute to global warming, it offers "a new tool to countries
battling climate change", says the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).
It regards itself as "a key driving force in combating climate change in
the pan-European region and beyond".
The 56-nation UNECE is one of five regional commissions of the United Nations.
The others are the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP),
the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the Economic and Social Commission
for Western Asia (ESCWA).
Officially termed the Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR),
the treaty is the "first-ever legally binding pact on pollutants",
asking countries to publish information on the release of 86 listed
pollutants.
The Protocol clearly specifies what information is required regarding
pollutant emissions and which groups are expected to contribute information,
says Julia Coym, a researcher at 'Maplecroft' global risk analyst group in
London.
"Any facility with more than ten employees working in sectors such as
energy, chemical production, mining, waste management or livestock production
is required to declare the amount of pollutants it emits, as well as by what
means they are emitted and, if not released into the air, where pollutants are
transported," says Coym.
To date, the Protocol has been ratified by seventeen countries: Albania,
Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland.
The European Community is also a Party to the Protocol. It will enter into
force on October 8, ninety days after the deposit of France', the 17th
State’s, instrument of ratification.
POWERFUL TOOL
In the past, public disclosure of information about pollutant releases has
forced companies to improve their environmental performance. "Citizens in
countries requiring industries to report on their emissions and transfers of
significant pollutants will therefore wield a powerful tool in the fight for a
cleaner and safer environment," says the UNECE in a press release.
Jan Kubiš, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for
Europe, describes this new international law as "a milestone in the
advancement of public access to information about sources of environmental
pollution in the UNECE region".
The region spans the entire European continent, the Caucasus and Central Asia;
it also includes Israel, Turkey, Canada and the USA.
Several parties to the Protocol have released their registers on the Internet
over the past months: Switzerland in February, Spain in March, UK in April and
Germany in June this year. The EU's 27 member states are expected to make
public their first annual reports on the release and transfer of the
Protocol’s list of pollutants on September 30.
The backdrop to the Protocol is provided by the UNECE Convention on Access to
Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in
Environmental Matters -- known as the Aarhus Convention.
The Convention seeks to promote greater transparency and accountability among
government bodies by guaranteeing public rights of access to environmental
information, providing for public involvement in environmental decision-making
and requiring the establishment of procedures enabling the public to challenge
environmental decisions.
The Aarhus Convention was adopted in the Danish city of Aarhus in June 1998
and entered into force in October 2001. The Convention has 42 Parties.
The Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers was agreed at an
extraordinary meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention. 36 governments
and the European Community signed it in May 2003 in Kiev (Ukraine). But the
participation of all countries in the region is welcome.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The Protocol is not directly related to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm
Conventions. But by pressuring biggest polluters through increased
transparency, it provides a valuable contribution to clean environment, says
Coym.
The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous
Wastes and their Disposal, which came into force in 1992, is considered to be
the most comprehensive global environmental agreement on hazardous and other
wastes.
The Rotterdam Convention that came into force in 2004 operates through Prior
Informed Consent (PIC). It aims at promoting shared responsibility and
cooperative efforts among Parties in the international trade of certain
hazardous chemicals in order to protect human health and the environment.
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), which
entered into force in 2004, is a global treaty to protect human health and the
environment from chemicals. Exposure to POPs can cause serious health damage
including certain cancers, birth defects, dysfunctional immune and
reproductive systems, greater susceptibility to disease and even diminished
intelligence.
The Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers is however not the
only activity of the UNECE related to climate change.
The 1979 UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP)
and its protocols aim to cut emissions of air pollutants -- among others,
sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx) and non-methane volatile organic
compounds (NMVOCs).
Such pollutants can either directly influence global warming, by affecting the
cooling or absorptive characteristics of the atmosphere, or indirectly
influence it through, for example, ozone formation. Recent studies have shown
important synergies in addressing air pollution control and climate change
mitigation and have highlighted the economic and environmental co-benefits
that are possible by tackling these issues in an integrated way.
The intrinsic relation of the hydrological cycle -- and thus water
availability, quality, and services -- to climate change makes adaptation
critical for water management and the water sector in general. The UNECE
Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and
International Lakes (Water Convention) is an important legal framework for the
development of adaptation strategies, in particular in the transboundary
context.
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Ramesh
Jaura is chief editor of the Globalom Media
group, president of Euforic-Europe's
Forum on International Cooperation in Maastricht (The Netherlands) and
Director of IPS-Inter
Press Service Europe in Berlin. This is published in
arrangement with
Voices of the South on Globalization. (End/2009)
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