by Nityanand Jayaraman
Greenpeace International
Let me begin by outlining and elaborating on what we perceive to be the major issues relevant to the ongoing international negotiations on POPs (for the South), drawing from our campaigning experiences in the region and from lessons learned from other international environmental agreements such as the Basel Convention.
At this point, I would also like to point out that one of the most important stakeholders, perhaps the one stakeholder who could swing the direction in which these negotiations go, is not present here among us. I refer to the unborn generations of humans and other life forms who have conclusively been included as inheritors of our toxic, or as new evidence points, to our endocrine disrupting legacy. We must realise that we are no longer talking about risk assessment and amelioration. We are talking about the extent of injury and prevention. Some politics: Unborn generations do not have a vote even among the most progressive democracies in the world. In true fairness to them, we should commit ourselves to evolving out of not just these POPs but others that we're entrapped in as rapid a manner as is socially equitable.
Let us put it this way: Scientists, like lawyers, are over relied upon by the modern human society to validate commonsensical decisions that are often are taken by common people on fundamental issues. And scientists like lawyers, often take a long time to call a spade a spade. In the case of POPs, they seem to have. And at this point, we could say that there definitely exists an international momentum to take action on certain persistent organic chemicals - as evidenced by the UNEP process and the proliferation of several regional agreements and fora addressing the same issues (e.g. OSPAR, LRTAP, PIC ). In fact, from the regional presentations of the previous two days, we can conclude that countries in the region have been moving towards POPs elimination in one form or the other already. The added advantage, and perhaps most significant, is the opportunity that this convention provides to rid us of the accumulated problem of our yesteryears - i.e. in dealing with stockpiles and in closing existing loopholes.
Nevertheless, as negotiations proceed and potential obligations among Parties become clearer, developing countries could well send the message (that was sent in other fora) that discussions of obligations without coinciding discussions on alternatives and financial and technical assistance are pointless.
Having said that, let us now go into the issues;
1. First it has been pointed out that there exists a wide information gap between the industrialized countries and the developing countries concerning POPs. I would even hazard to say that while there is considerable public awareness in the case of the short-listed POPs pesticides - there is practically no awareness about the POPs industrial chemicals (PCBs, dioxins , furans) in the South -- and even if there is , more often than not, that information is limited /confined to a small group of experts in the region. There is no awareness for example about how these chemicals are released into the environment and what kinds of industrial practices generate these chemicals.
We see the discussions and the treatment of these issues to eventually become more complex once developing countries get a clear picture of what kinds of industries and industrial practices will be impacted by a legally-binding agreement on POPs elimination.
It is not sufficient for governments to have this information. We're functioning in a region where the political reality in democracies is coalition politics no clear majority; or none of the above wins. It is important that most fundamentally, this process moves the citizens (not the government) towards a position of making better informed decisions. And this can come via provisions to proactively ensure public access to crucial policy-influencing data.
Some developing countries participating in these discussions are there because of specific issues they wish to bring forward in the negotiations, among them the continued use and manufacture of certain pesticides -- which brings us to the next issue.
2. Endosulfan was being used indiscriminately by Filipino farmers to counter the Golden Snail pest problem even though the pesticide was not registered as a molluscicide. This led to large scale pollution of waterbodies and to increased occupational exposure among the farmers. When the Philippines Government moved to ban its use in the Philippines, Hoechst (the MNC who manufactures Endosulfan) intervened to stymie the decision. This goes on to highlight the irresponsible behavior of Multinational Companies, and more importantly the power that MNCs wield over even large countries like the Philippines.
On the surface, it will appear that there is very little controversy surrounding the 9 short listed POPs pesticide being targeted for phase-out in these negotiations. Indeed there is a certain amount of international consensus to eliminate these pesticides from the global environment. But existing realities, at least in the country in which I was born into don't bear out these assumptions.
India for one still manufactures a great deal of DDT - about 4-7,000 tons a year. The manufacturer, government-owned Hindustan Insecticides has a net capacity of 10,000 mt/year. The technical grade material is sold to authorized formulators, whose exact number is not known. The technical grade material is 'officially sold' only to the National Malaria Eradication Program authorized institutions who in turn invite sale bids for the product via notices in the newspaper.
DDT use in India is restricted to health programs and the use of DDT in agriculture has been banned since 1989. However, it is common knowledge that a substantial portion of DDT even today reaches the agricultural fields.
Since the mid-80s many studies have pointed out the pervasive presence of DDT and its derivatives in the environment and human body. But to date, there is no popular concern in India about this. Several reasons as to why this is so:
Indians, and to a large extent, all South Asians are immune to toxicological effects that otherwise affect the lesser humans in the rest of the world.
Coming back to DDT and Malaria: Money has never been a problem in Malaria research. Because, as one medical doctor stated, there is no money. Malaria cases vary from 2.5 to 2.9 M annually. That's twice the number of people affected by AIDS. But the budget allocations for the two 'epidemics' are telling -- 13 cents per capita for malaria victims versus $640 for AIDS. The reason: Malaria is a reality not for the United States or Germany, but for India and Bangladesh. No doubt that our responses, within the respective nations, to malaria are as elitist. Most Malaria deaths are preventable. But our investment has been in keeping alive the polluting industry of DDT manufacturing to provide us with material for ritual spraying. We have not been able to spruce up our Primary Health Care Network because of the severe budget cuts due to the WB-initiated SAP. Aside from India, other known manufacturers and users of DDT are China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
The international negotiations on POPs offers us a chance to rid the planet of DDT once and for all. But for that to happen, the provision of alternatives (non-chemical by emphasising changes in primary health care sector) and technical assistance to cope with malaria have to be made available. It is not a simple matter of bashing India and China or any other country that still produce or use this chemical because that is the political reality of our world.
Aside from DDT, India also manufactures other pesticides such as chlordane, heptachlor, aldrin, HCB - and while many of these chemicals have been banned years ago - our research shows that significant quantities of these pesticides are leaving India for the US, Europe, Australia and other Asian countries.
3. The third issue which I think will also have a significant bearing on these negotiations is the issue of stockpiles of obsolete pesticides and industrial chemicals. No documentation has been done to inventory the actual amounts of these stockpiled pesticides in Asia -- problems of monitoring. The estimated total amount of obsolete pesticides in non-OECD countries is expected to be far in excess of 100,000 tonnes. In addition there are large quantities of heavily contaminated material , soil and empty containers that should also be regarded as toxic wastes. Developing countries have no capability to destroy these materials in an environmentally sound fashion. And this is where the industrialised countries can step in lending, in every sense of the word, their capacities to detoxify the stockpiles that were created by their science.
However, instead of attracting initiatives that would capitalize on this problem and turn it around for the planet's benefit, we are attracting the wrong kind of capitalists, which brings us to the fourth issue.
4. Asia is literally under attack from waste management companies from North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. These MNCs are trying to peddle (dump is a better word) discredited waste management technologies such as incinerators to unsuspecting buyers in the region. Today the discussion is on about incinerators and dioxin, chlorinated processes and dioxin, PVC and dioxin.
Will this forum ensure that dioxin-causing incinerator technology, or chlorinated pulp technology or dioxin causing PVC technology will not be transferred in the next few years from the North to the South? Otherwise, these technologies will invade (as they portend to) our shores. And ten years down the line the UN may be convening another international convention to phase out PVC and chlorine bleached pulp industry. And all our efforts of the last few days would be reduced to an exercise in futility. As members of citizens' groups fighting on much more fundamental issues than just the technological issue of POPs, we demand that early steps be taken to identify other known sources of POPs and initiate steps to tackle them so as to make decisions less political for our burdened governments.
Chlorine capacity in Asia is set to rise from around 12.5 M tonne/year to around 13.3 M tonnes/yr in the year 2000 - representing an increase of 6.4% . PVC producers are rapidly integrating their markets in Southeast Asia, setting up new plants in Thailand, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and the Philippines. The current importance of Asia in terms of world petrochemical demand cannot be overstated. By 1992, the Asia-Pacific rim countries were responsible for a third of the world demand for petrochemicals and plastics. This was projected to rise to 40% of the world demand by the year 2000.
In the Philippines, for example, we know of at least 15 proposals to put up municipal and medical waste incineration facilities in various parts of the country by waste management giants such as Volund Ecology Systems (Denmark), Ogden Martin (US), Asea Brown Boveri , and Steinmuller (Germany). WMI is also in the process of establishing waste incinerators in Thailand and Indonesia. Malaysia is set to build a regional medical waste incinerator sometime soon. Even as we speak, these companies are out there trying to convince local government executives to buy into their quick fix solution to their burgeoning garbage problems. We should not refer to them as incinerators because they conjure up images of spanking clean chrome-finished facilities. What is on sale for Asia are burn machines what sells for $200 million in the Netherlands will be sold to you for Rs. 1 crore, (Rs 10 million or $250,000). You won't have any dioxin problems because you won't have any dioxin standards or testing facilities.
The essence of a peaceable and long-lasting treaty is one that is based on trust, trust building where it doesn't exist. The one question that's foremost in the minds of southern peoples if not southern governments is this: How long will it be before this new solution becomes the problem slotted for international phaseout?
So, I repeat the demand: Will the World Bank, the US AEP, the bilateral and multilateral agencies stop peddling technologies that the South will be forced to phase out in five years time under tremendous political opposition and trouble?