ENVIRONMENT: Developing Countries Call for Co-operation on Ozone

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Jul 9 1998 (IPS) - The developing countries fear the Multilateral Fund for improving the condition of the ozone layer will run out of cash within the year, just when they will need support to reduce the use and production of damaging substances.

Permanent Secretary of India’s Environment Ministry, Vishwanath Anand, demanded the concern of the developing world be examined promptly in order for decisions to be taken in the meeting of Montreal Protocol states in Cairo this November.

The Montreal Protocol, a multilateral pact regulating the use and emission of chemical substances damaging to the ozone layer, was to be implemented in the industrialised countries in 1995, and in the developing world, from July 1, 1999.

Anand, at the close of a three day session of the Protocol working group Thursday, stressed the successes of its application, which in barely three years has managed to drastically reduce emissions of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) – chemical products which eat up the ozone in the stratosphere.

Unlike other environmental protocols, the Montreal agreement has separate financial facilities, stressed Anand, co-chairing the working group with Finland’s Jukka Uosukainen.

The Multilateral Fund executive committee has already approved 2,000 projects for the progressive reduction of the consumption of around 100,000 tons of controlled substances and the production of a further 13,000 tons.

The cost of these projects stands at more than 730 million dollars, according to estimates by Germany’s Klaus Topfer, director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a message he delivered to the near 300 delegates from 97 countries participating in the sessions.

Topfer called on the executing agencies and the developing countries to complete these projects in the shortest time possible.

The succesfull execution of the protocol in the year to come by all the developing countries would prove the validity of the Multilateral Fund and would encourage the industrialised countries to continue support until the developing world ends this phase, said Topfer.

Uosukainen told a press conference the working group would be commissioning special scientific and technical teams to investigate the appearance of new ozone-damaging substances. The ozone layer protects all life forms from the harmful effects of ultraviolet rays.

The new products, he said, arise permanently as part of the inventions of the chemical industry. The substances entering the market include chlorobromomethane and nitrobromopropylene.

After discussing the matter, the working group agreed the governments must discourage the use and production of any chemical substance capable of reducing the ozone layer.

It would also be the developing nations’ job to establish control on the entry of old equipment, like refrigerators and cars, which the industrialised countries send to the developing world and transition economies.

These old devices still use CFCs and other damaging substances. The Protocol Secretariat will draw up a list of such machinery so that the developing countries can stop importing it.

The working group studied the connection between the Montreal Protocol on the protection of the ozone layer and the Climate Change Convention which aims to reduce the harmful effects of global warming on the atmosphere.

Certain chemical products which are not damaging to the ozone layer and which have been recommended as substitutes for the damaging freons and the CFCs could contribute to global warming.

“Thus one convention encourages the use of substances which are damaging under the other,” said Uosukainen.

This contradiction must be resolved and the decision was made to ask the scientific departments of the two conventions to look into the question and present a report for the Cairo conference, said the Finnish advisor.

The developing countries expressed the need to adapt the requisites of the Protocol to the health demands of each country in the cases of inhalers which use CFCs, for use by asthma sufferers.

The working group decided each country should adopt transition policies to ensure the supply of these drugs until the pharmaceutical industry can come up with new non-CFC using alternatives.