Legally-binding international treaties to phase out the use of a range of persistent organic pollutants such as DDT, as well as three heavy metals - cadmium, lead and mercury - were signed in Denmark yesterday by representatives of more than 50 countries at the Pan-European Environment Ministers' Conference.
Speaking on behalf of the EU, Britain's Environment Minister, Mr Michael Meacher, said the two protocols under the Convention on Long-range Trans-boundary Air Pollution were a "very important precursor to a global agreement to limit and eventually eliminate these substances".
Persistent organic pollutants, known as POPs, can have serious health effects, including cancers, birth defects and fertility problems. They persist in the environment for a long time, travel long distances and accumulate in the tissues of humans and wildlife.
Altogether, 16 POPs are covered by one of the protocols, mostly pesticides or chemicals used for industrial purposes. The other protocol, dealing with heavy metals, would ban the use of lead in petrol throughout Europe, as well as in the former Soviet Union, where it is more prevalent.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, who signed the two protocols on behalf of the State, pointed out that unleaded petrol now accounted for 82.5 per cent of all petrol sales at home and there was a commitment to phase out the leaded version by 2000 other than for vintage cars.
He said the use of POPs by industry was also being phased out via the integrated pollution-control licensing system operated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Hence, the adoption of the two protocols would present no particular problem to Ireland.
The next step, according to Ms Anna Lind, Sweden's Environment Minister, would be to negotiate a protocol on nitrogen oxides. However, she conceded this was going to be "more difficult" because much of the "Nox" pollution in developed countries was caused by traffic.
Talks on a global agreement to phase out POPs start next week. Asked whether developing nations could be brought on board, Mr Meacher said: "We are the countries responsible for the dissemination of these chemicals. If we are seen to be taking firm action, we are in a stronger moral position to get other countries to support us."
He conceded that the negotiating process was painfully slow. "But at least the framework is now in place, so if science establishes that there is a need to take action on the basis of the precautionary principle we should make rapid progress" in adding further chemicals to those being phased out.
However, Greenpeace International said the POPs protocol only went some of the way towards eliminating all persistent toxic substances at source. It would also allow a single country to veto adding other chemicals to the list of banned substances no matter how strong the scientific evidence.
Ms Lind said negotiations at EU level had been seriously hampered by a requirement that all hazardous chemicals had to be dealt with on an individual basis. "We are going to have to work with groups of chemicals in the future, rather than dealing with them all one by one."
Asked by a Norwegian magazine editor what impact the heavy metals protocol would have on the use of mercury amalgam in dental fillings, she said it was being phased out in Sweden after 2000.
