Opening of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Persistent Organic Pollutants

Statement by
Mr. Klaus Töpfer
Executive Director
United Nations Environment Programme
at the
Opening of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee
on Persistent Organic Pollutants
Montreal, 29 June 1998

* It is my great pleasure to open this first meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for an international legally binding instrument for implementing international action on certain persistent organic pollutants.

* I want to thank the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec for their generous invitation to host this meeting.

* Madame Minister, your invitation to host this meeting is further evidence of Canada's leadership on environment and development issues. You were a leader in the Stockholm Conference in 1972. You hosted the Habitat Conference in 1976. You have provided many citizens who have achieved distinction as international leaders in environment and development. Several names come to my mind: Maurice Strong, Jim MacNeill and many others.

* I feel strongly that we are meeting in Montreal among kindred spirits and friends.

* This atmosphere is important to us because in this first meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee, we are faced with an urgent and a challenging task.

* Many of the substances produced by the chemical industry have benefitted humankind and the environment immensely. These chemicals have controlled insects, animal pests, infectious diseases and weeds. And in doing so, they have assisted in ensuring food security and good health for millions around the world. In fact, some of these chemicals have become part of our daily existence.

* I regard business and industry to be the prime-movers in our common endeavour to achieve sustainable development. They have the know how and the resources. They have the technology. But more than anything else, they possess the entrepreneurial ability to innovate and the vision to formulate strategies to achieve this goal. In this regard, we have high expectations from the chemical industry in achieving our goals.

* It is natural that hazardous substances circulating in our environment should evoke intense emotions. Few matters have stirred public fears as environmental issues in recent years. And hazardous chemical substances rank at the top in terms of concern. This interest serves as a brake on unchecked industrial and economic development. The public interest also brings accountability into focus which is the hallmark of modern environmental regulation.

* It is obvious that good intentions can never produce an environment which is completely safe and free from all risks to health and life.

* In this interdependent world of ours, everything is eventually related to everything else. A policy issue in one area may have multiple consequences in others that are perilous to its objectives if ignored.

* It is clear that while we cannot legislate danger out of our world, we can endeavour to balance the costs with the risks presented. Public awareness and the law have to be presented and used as effective instruments to ensure that the desired policy balance is achieved.

* Nearly thirty-six years have passed since Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" demonstrated that certain chemicals were placing the entire chain of life in grave peril.

* Thirty six years later, we have yet to address globally a number of those chemicals to which Rachel Carson alerted us. These include Persistent Organic Pollutants: aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, and toxaphene.

* Each year that passes, increases the effects of Persistent Organic Pollutants on human health and the environment. Failure to reduce or eliminate the releases of POPs into the environment will lead to loss of lives and further damage to the environment.

* There are many lessons to be learned. But the most important one is that though national action on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is important, it is not enough.

* Persistent Organic Pollutants are a global concern. They persist in the environment, accumulate in living organisms and travel long distances. Persistent Organic Pollutants are capable of causing harm anywhere across the globe even thousands of kilometres from their initial source.

* As a consequence, no government acting alone can adequately protect its citizens or its environment from the threat of POPs .

* We cannot afford to wait any longer if we want to avoid the effects which may be harmful to us, our children, and the generations to follow. We cannot afford to wait any longer if we want to prevent further damage to our wildlife due to POPs.

* If we agree to act now, lives will be saved and the environment will be better protected. The actions we agree to take now, will be in the interests of every individual from every nation. I urge participants to keep this in mind as we work together towards the important goal of reducing and/or eliminating releases of POPs into the environment.

* The task before you is challenging. But the opportunities to succeed are equally great. In the week ahead you will lay the foundation for successfully negotiating an agreement that will benefit present generations and those to come.

SECOND SET OF REMARKS BY THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR TO START THE WORK OF THE INC

* At the outset, I would again like to thank our Canadian hosts and the Government of Quebec for their generosity and the warmth of their welcome. Indeed, their contribution has been a vital one. Since we do not have a funded budget for these negotiations we are dependent on generous host governments to fund these sessions.

* I would urge other governments to emulate the example of Canada to host and fund future meetings of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Persistent Organic Pollutants and activities in their support.

* I would also like to thank the Governments of Australia, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, United States, and the European Commission for their generous support of the global work on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Ladies and Gentlemen, * Our meeting in Montreal is a reminder to all of us of the historic Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer which was adopted here in 1987.

* The success of the Montreal Protocol is now "common knowledge". The Protocol itself is regularly cited as a model for virtually every environmental crisis in need of an international response. It was the first treaty ever in which countries agreed to impose significant costs on their economies in order to protect the global atmosphere. It was achieved despite the uncertainties on both the science of ozone depletion and the costs of alternatives.

* The agreement also showed that the only way to deal effectively with global environmental problems is through concerted global action.

* Since 1987 a number of major multilateral environmental agreements have been adopted. These cover a number of global environmental issues - climate change, biodiversity, desertification, hazardous wastes and other issues.

* Most recently negotiations were completed on a convention on Prior Informed Consent. This is an agreement that will restrict trade in certain hazardous chemicals that are banned, severely restricted or acutely hazardous under conditions of use.

* This is a great achievement which many of you sitting in this room have given a part of your lives to make happen. Please accept my congratulations.

* The international community must now turn its attention to persistent organic pollutants .

* From the North Pole to the deep oceans, persistent organic pollutants can be found in the air, water and food chain. It is not only people who live or work near sources of pollution who are exposed. The problem is truly global. Even polar bears, whales and the Inuit people in the Arctic living far from any industry now carry extremely high levels of dioxins, PCBs and other organochlorines in their body tissues. These pollutants can be transported long distances on atmospheric currents and to a lesser extent in rivers and oceanic currents. The persistent organic pollutants take decades or centuries to degrade, and can undergo continual recycling throughout the environment.

* For wildlife, the adverse impacts of POPs are well documented. These effects include birth defects, cancers, immune system dysfunction and reproductive problems.

* Such effects seem to be a major contributing factor in the large population declines being observed in a number of species.

* The infamous case of the egg-shell thinning among birds exposed to DDT had nearly caused the extinction of some birds of prey in the 1970s.

* Since DDT has been banned in a number of countries, many of these species have made a comeback. Other wildlife species continue to suffer, in particular certain marine mammals. In the Baltic, for example, seals are becoming sick and often unable to reproduce and the otters are all now gone.

* For humans, the weight of evidence suggests that long- term exposure to low levels of POPs are a cause of the increasing rates of birth defects, fertility problems, greater susceptibility to disease, diminished intelligence and certain cancers including breast and prostate cancer.

* Perhaps, the most worrying sign is that these exposures are inherited by our children. In many ways the time between conception and birth is the most important for the healthy development of children. But they might be exposed to high- levels of POPs in the womb, via breast milk and during their life time via the food they eat, the water they drink and the air they breathe.

* Cases of developmental and immune disorders have already been associated with such exposures.

* In response to growing international concern about the threats posed by POPs and the considerable work on POPs that had begun in a number of regional and global fora, in May of 1995, the UNEP Governing Council called for a process to assess the need for global action on POPs.

* This decision requested the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) and the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) to prepare an assessment of 12 POPs thought to be of great global concern, and asked the IFCS to prepare recommendations for the next UNEP Governing Council on possible global action on POPs.

* As a result of the assessment prepared by Intergovernmental Programme on Chemical Safety, the IFCS concluded that the available information on the 12 Persistent Organic Pollutants was sufficient to warrant immediate global action.

* The Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety then prepared the recommendations for global action that became the basis for the subsequent UNEP Governing Council decision calling for the establishment of this Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee. Clearly this Forum has done much to set the stage for our work here. We appreciate their excellent work on POPs.

* On a separate but coordinated track, over one hundred countries met in Washington in 1995 to adopt the Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment form Land-Based Activities. The Global Programme of Action recognizes POPs as a major pollutant in marine environments. It also concludes that international action is needed to develop a global, legally binding instrument on POPs.

* Of particular note, are the negotiations that have recently been completed on a legally binding POPs Protocol to the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution under the auspices of the UN Economic Commission for Europe.

* I was pleased to witness the signing of this Protocol last week in Aarhus, Denmark. I think we can learn a great deal from it. However, since it is limited to air releases and covers only countries in the UN Economic Commission for Europe region, it is clear that a global POPs convention will have to address a broader set of issues.

* There is one other international effort I would like to bring to your attention. In the year leading up to these negotiations, UNEP and Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety jointly conducted a series of eight POPs regional and subregional POPs awareness-raising workshops across the globe. 138 countries participated in these workshops.

* Today in Montreal, we will start the process that will lead to global action on those twelve POPs which present serious global threats to human health and the environment.

* You have been charged with the responsibility of preparing a international legally binding instrument designed to reduce and/or eliminate the release into the environment of these 12 POPs.

* You are also requested by the UNEP Governing Council to establish an expert group to develop science-based criteria and a procedure for identifying additional POPs as candidates for international action. This process will give the future POPs convention flexibility in addressing new priorities for action as they arise.

* The challenge before you is to prepare a convention that will produce real reductions in the release of POPs into the environment and, where feasible, eliminate their release.

* A global POPs convention must promote shifts away from the production and use of POPs and the processes that generate them, to safer alternative chemicals and technologies. You must also consider what means are necessary to enable all countries to take steps to reduce and eliminate POPs releases within their borders and meet their commitments under a global POPs convention.

* This was recognized by the G-8 foreign ministers' meeting last month in Birmingham who concluded that there is a need to address problems some developing countries will have in reducing and phasing out the use of certain POPs.

* As you move forward in the preparation of the POPs convention, I believe there will be opportunities to take note of, and possibly forge linkages with other international work on chemicals. For example, you should consider :

-- coordinating your efforts to encourage the safe withdrawal from use of DDT in malaria vector control with WHO's programmes to reduce or eradicate malaria worldwide;

-- linking your efforts to address POPs as wastes, with related work under the Basel Convention and FAO on the safe management and disposal of POPs, in particular, unwanted and often abandoned stockpiles of POPs pesticides and other chemicals;

* Synergies are also possible with UNEP's Industry and Environment Office and International Environmental Technology centres, particularly in the area of dioxins and furans. Similarly, you may also consider the work already undertaken under UNEP's Global Programme for Action for land-based sources of marine pollution. You may also consider possible collaboration among UNEP, FAO, WHO and others to identify alternatives to POPs pesticides. You may also consider using the PIC Procedure as a potential mechanism for monitoring trade in a number of the POPs. You may also identify priority projects for funding under the international waters window of the Global Environment Facility.

* You may also like to draw on the strengths of the Convention on Biological Diversity, whose Secretariat is located in this very city. You must also draw on the work that has already been done in the area of Biosafety.

To ensure a smooth beginning to this meeting, I suggest that if there are no objections, the draft rules of procedure contained in meeting document number two be used on temporary basis, in accordance with United Nations practice, until they are adopted by the INC.

We now move to item two on the provisional agenda: Election of the bureau.......