UN to Consider Mercury Treaty After the US Drops Opposition
Ban-Hg-Wg Ban Mercury Working Group
by Andrew Porter and Tim Webb, The Business
7 February 2003 (Nairobi, Kenya) –
At a United Nations Environment Program Governing Council meeting today, Environmental Ministers are expected to adopt a decision to take some short-term immediate actions and to consider further measures--including an international treaty -- to address the significant adverse impacts of global mercury. The near final version of the agreement was reached late Thursday only after the US delegation dropped its opposition near the very end of the negotiations.
The Ban Mercury Working Group (Ban Hg-Wg), a coalition of environmental and human health organizations concerned about mercury pollution worldwide, expressed strong support for the negotiation of a legally binding instrument to phase-out mercury use, trade and emissions globally and perhaps address simultaneously other toxic heavy metals.
"No single country can resolve the mercury problem on its own, there needs to be a binding global solution," said Michael Bender, the Ban-Hg-Wg representative attending the Nairobi meeting. "There are alternatives for mercury uses, but there is no alternative to global cooperation."
Recently, there has been growing awareness and interest in the need to address the mercury issue both at home and internationally. The exploration of creating an international treaty to address the global mercury problem was called for by the European Union in December. Also, last September at the UNEP global mercury meeting in Geneva, Latin American and Caribbean countries called more pointedly for a treaty. In the US, the Environmental Council of the States, an organization comprised of top environmental state officials from all 50 states, have called for a binding international treaty on mercury within 6 years.
Mercury levels have increased 3-to-5 fold in the past century due to human activities and are reaching threshold levels that threaten human health and the environment, as well as the future viability of the global fishing industry. Since 1996, fish has surpassed beef and poultry as the most consumed protein source in the world, but is now threatened by mercury build-up in the global environment.
Sources and uses of mercury include the burning of fossil fuels, mining operations, industrial uses and waste disposal.
Ban Hg-Wg is a network of 28 public interest non-government organizations from around the world, formed to promote the following:
- Use of mercury is phased out in both the South and the North and all new mining must cease;
- Mercury releases from all sources are subject to continuing minimization, and ultimate elimination as feasible;
- Commodity transactions and global trade in mercury must be reduced and then eliminated;
- Long term storage facilities must be created to assure environmentally sound storage of existing quantities of mercury; and
- In the interim, the South must not become a dumping ground for mercury-based technologies, products and/or wastes.
Contact:
Michael Bender, Mercury Policy Project, 802-249-8543, (c) 802-223-9000, E-mail: mercurypolicy@aol.com
Richard Gutierrez, Basel Action Network, 206-652-5555, E-mail: rgutierrez@ban.org
For more information visit:
http://www.mercurypolicy.org.
http://www.ban.org/Ban-Hg-Wg
http://www.chem.unep.ch/mercury
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