UN agreement a disaster for ozone layerVIENNA Environmental organisations around the world have condemned an agreement reached on December 7 by 149 countries that fails to take urgently needed action on methyl bromide, a highly toxic pesticide that depletes the Earth's ozone layer. In November, the United Nations reported that the hole in the earth's protective ozone shield covered an area twice the size of Europe at its seasonal peak in October, and grew at an unprecedented rate during 1995. Increased ultraviolet radiation from ozone deletion is linked to rising rates of skin cancer, eye cataracts and damage to marine and agricultural ecosystems. Scientists estimate that methyl bromide, a gas used to treat soil and agricultural commodities, is 50 times more destructive to the ozone layer than CFCs. According to UN scientists, methyl bromide is responsible for 5-10% of ozone depletion, and eliminating use of this pesticide offers the quickest and most efficient way to reduce future ozone loss. The December 7 agreement of the UN Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer does not eliminate methyl bromide in the industrialised countries until 2010, preceded by a 25% cut in 2001 and a 50% cut in 2005. Developing countries will freeze methyl bromide consumption in 2002. Delayed action in developing countries is a golden opportunity for methyl bromide producers to vastly increase their international sales by dumping this deadly pesticide there, said Corinna Gilfillan from Friends of the Earth. The US, the world's largest user of the pesticide, was one of a handful of countries (including Spain, France, Japan and Kenya) that backed the compromise agreement allowing ozone depletion for several more decades. Several producers of methyl bromide, including Great Lakes Chemical and Albermarle of the US, and Dead Sea Bromine of Israel, aggressively lobbied at the meeting not to phase out the chemical. The US is largely to blame for this damaging agreement, said Pesticide Action Network's Anne Schonfield. With an eye towards the 1996 elections, the White House has agreed to make the ozone hole bigger in return for votes in large agricultural states like Florida and California. Under the Clean Air Act, the US is scheduled to phase out methyl bromide by January 2001. This weak international agreement will only encourage those in Congress seeking to gut the Clean Air Act and prevent the phasing out of methyl bromide in the US, said Schonfield. n
[Abridged from Pesticide Action Network.]

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