t4. Public Interest Group's Views on POPs Problems

14. Public Interest Group's Views on POPs Problems

C. Boljkovac

Inuit Tapirisat of Canada

Ollawa-Canada

The appropriate goal for a POPs convention is the establishment of a systematic and sustained programme of action to eliminate POPs and their sources. This is the only course of action that can, over time eliminate the injury that POPs can cause. A POPs management regime should be pursued as interim measures where POPs elimination requires an extended phase-out period.

Concerned public interest organisations urge governments an the International Negotiating Committee to establish a legally binding global Programme of Action designed to eliminate Persistent Organic Pollutants and their anthropogenic sources based on the following principles:

1) It should be understood that a global POPs Programme of Action established under a global, legally binding agreement, will primarily entail a problem-solving, solutions-oriented regime. It should be acknowledged that many important countries lack the capacity on their own, to eliminate POPs and their anthroprogenic sources without significant external assistance. A mearingful POPs Elimination Agreement must include significant commitments for shared responsibility including external assistance as well as technical and other aid in capacity enhancement. This regime must actively encourage the establishment of cost-effective and efficient means to achieve desired outcomes.

2) No country or region will be asked or required to take action under a POPs Agreement that is substantively harmftil to the health or well-being of its people. Special consideration should be given to infectious disease control, necessary food production, and other significant economic, social or health-related matters. Assistance will often be required to help countries identify and make available cost-effective alternatives to POPs and their sources, including non-chemical alternatives.

3) It should be understood that achieving POPs elimination is primarily a qualitative, and not a quantitative undertaking. Once a substance has been listed as a POP for the purposes of the Agreement the elimination goal -- which is a qualitative goal -- should become operative. A listed POP has no acceptable emission limit value; no acceptable daily intake, etc. (except on an interim basis with clear sunset deadlines). The decision to list a substance as a POP under the global binding Programme of Action should reflect a decision that the substance poses an unmanageable risk and a commitment to work toward elimination of the substance and its anthroprogenic sources. Once a substance is listed as a POP, it is inappropriate to accept its continued generation and release into perpetuity. We reject the claim that emissions and releases of POPs can be safely and effectively controlled for ever.

4) For those POPs already identified as UNEP action targets - the agreement should mandate a rapid, but orderly and responsible global programme of action that, taking into account points 1 to 3 above, will:

· For those POPs which are intentionally produced, phase out and then ban all intentional production and intentional use and also end all export, import, transfer and sales;

· For those POPs that are generated as unwanted contaminants, by-products and combustion products, identify and phase out significant anthroprogenic sources. In identifying sources, consideration should be given to industrial processes, waste disposal technologies, and anthropogenic products and materials routinely associated with the generation of POPs during their ordinary life cycle;

· For obsolete POPs stocks and environmental POPs reservoirs, identify, collect, and destroy POPs by means that do not themselves, cause hazards, generate POPs or otherwise threaten or injure health and/or the environment.

5) Reasonable criteria as well as a workable and transparent procedure should be established for identi~ing new POPs beyond the original twelve as targets for the global programme of action. Once new POPs have met the established criteria according to the established procedure, then they too should be subject to elimination as described above.

6) POPs elimination should proceed through a transition regime that is rapid, orderly and just. Unnecessary delay should not be tolerated. Phase-out transitions should proceed through a planned and orderly regime that is designed to keep economic and social costs to a minimum and to avoid disruptions and dislocations. In some cases, there will be need for transition assistance and/or other aid to specific groups of workers or communities who currently depend for their livelihood on production or use of POPs, on the technologies that generate POPs or on materials that generate POPs during their ordinary life cycle. When there are economic benefits as well as economic costs associated with a POPs phase-out regime, these should be equitably distributed among affected groups.