By Paul Weinberg
MONTREAL, Jul 11 1998 (IPS)

Competition between environmentalists and chemicals producers will intensify as countries hammer out an internationally binding treaty covering the world’s most toxic pollutants, observers warn.

That prediction follows the first meeting here of an ‘Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee’ of 100-plus nations charged with preparing, by the year 2000, a global pact to reduce or eliminate releases of ‘persistent organic pollutants’ (POPs). Environmentalists and the chemicals industry vied for influence at last week’s talks and say they will continue to lobby government delegates over the next two years.

‘Green’ groups want countries to back a ban on POPs and to enlarge the current list of 12 pollutants targeted for early action by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Producers of the substances favour controlling their spread and limiting the scope of any global pact.

In particular, the question of which chemicals to add to UNEP’s list of targeted long-lasting hazards – a question mainly skirted during talks here – likely will come back to haunt negotiators, says Theo Colborn, senior scientist at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Substances on UNEP’s list include pesticide POPs (aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, and toxaphene), industrial chemicals (hexachlorovenzene, which also is used as a pesticide, and polychlorinated biphenyls, also known as PCBs), and POPs that are unintended byproducts (dioxins and furans, released when garbage and medical waste is incinerated).

“Every one of these chemicals has been banned and restricted in some way or somewhere in the world,” and their inclusion in UNEP’s list is not considered controversial, says Colborn, manager of WWF’s Washington, DC-based wildlife and contaminant programme.

However, the setting in place of procedures to add substances to the list inevitably will spark resistance from chemicals manufacturers, he adds. “That will be their big concern: What will be the next chemical?”

For their part, business groups will support the process so long as decisions on which chemicals to add to the list are based on science “rather than what might be the flavour of the month,” says Gordon Lloyd, spokesman for the International Council of Chemical Associations.

The chemicals industry also has been reassured by delegates’ recognition that action to phase out the three classes of POPs – pesticides, industrial chemicals, and byproducts – will “differ”, adds Lloyd. That indication of flexibility – considered key by industry – promises to touch off further debate as producers push controls on POPs and ‘greens’ urge elimination.

Emery LeBlanc, executive vice president at Montreal-based Alcan Aluminum Ltd., appeared to tout voluntary controls when he told delegates here last week, “Innovative solutions for preventing and reducing emissions is a trademark of industry initiatives world wide.”

WWF, however, is concerned by what it sees as a lack of urgency in phasing out even those POPs already targeted – despite official assurances to he contrary from national delegates here last week.

“Effective follow-through on key issues remains inadequate to the task,” says Clifton Curtis, director of the WWF-US Global Toxics Programme. “Key issues include elimination of POPs’ production, use and existing stockpiles; real progress in providing adequate alternatives; (and) adequate financial and technical assistance”.

Financing will be a key question for developing countries currently dependent on pesticides POPs – such as DDT – to combat insect-borne tropical diseases such as malaria, according to Ronke Soyombo, a scientist on the Nigerian delegation. Her country, which has banned all the targeted POPS except for chlordane, favours an international fund “to do researchand develop capacity” for the development of inexpensive alternatives.

Recent scientific studies have shown that high levels of DDT in the body fat of African women is interfering with their ability to produce sufficient breast milk to feed their babies. South Africa’s delegation last week pledged their country to stop using the pesticide within three years.

DDT has been banned for many years in much of the industrial north but continues to be produced and exported by companies in, for example, India, China, Mexico and Russia. Other POPs – such as PCBs, which are used as heat exchange fluids in electrical transformers and capacitors – feature prominently in industrialised countries.

What all POPs have in common is that they remain in the environment for years after being released – often traveling great distances through air, wind and water. The substances have been blamed for cancers, birth defects, immune disorders, dropping sperm counts, disruption of hormonal systems and behavioural abnormalities.

“These chemicals are undermining the development of the brain…children’s intelligence is being compromised (as is) their ability to socially integrate,” asserts Colborn, citing several epidemiological studies in the United States.

Children exposed to even minimal amounts of these chemicals in the womb or through the mother’s breast milk can suffer from memory and attention deficiency, researchers say. Exceptionally high levels of DDT and PCBs have been found in the fatty tissues of animals and fish in the Arctic region. Thus, some 100,000 Inuit – indigenous people of northern Canada, Greenland, Alaska and Siberia, whose staple foods include whale blubber, fish and seal oil – have been exposed to POPs released thousands of miles away.

The Inuit still hunt for their food, live off the land and its wildlife, and are uniquely vulnerable because of their diet and a lack of economic alternatives in their isolated cold environment, explains Craig Boljkovac of WWF-Canada’s toxicology programme. But people in tropical countries who must handle the substances “may be in even more danger,” he adds.

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