GENEVA (AFP) - Delegations from some 140 countries agreed Saturday to
adopt a ground-breaking treaty limiting the use and emission of
health-hazardous mercury, the UN said, although environmental activists
lamented it did not go far enough.
The world's first legally
binding treaty on mercury, reached after a week of thorny talks, will
aim to reduce global emission levels of the toxic heavy metal also known
as quicksilver, which poses risks to human health and the environment.
"This
was a herculean task ... but we have succeeded," Achim Steiner, UN
under-secretary general and head of the UN environment programme (UNEP),
told reporters in Geneva.
The treaty has been named the Minamata
Convention on Mercury, in honour of the Japanese town where inhabitants
for decades have suffered the consequences of serious mercury
contamination.
The text will be signed in Minamata in October and
will take effect once it has been ratified by 50 countries -- something
organisers expect will take three to four years.
Mercury is found
in products ranging from electrical switches, thermometers and
light-bulbs, to amalgam dental fillings and even facial creams. Large
amounts of the heavy metal are released from small-scale gold mining,
coal-burning power plants, metal smelters and cement production.
"It
is quite remarkable how much mercury in a sense has entered into use in
our lives.... We've been creating a terrible legacy," Steiner said.
"Mercury
accumulates in the food chain through fish... It is released through
coal fired power stations and it travels sometimes thousands of
kilometres. It affects the Inuit in Canada just as it affects the
small-scale artisanal gold miner somewhere in southern Africa," he said.
Serious
mercury poisoning affects the body's immune system and development of
the brain and nervous system, posing the greatest risk to foetuses and
infants.
The treaty sets a phase out date of 2020 for a long line
of products, including mercury thermometers, blood pressure measuring
devices, most batteries, switches, some kinds of fluorescent lamps and
soaps and cosmetics.
It however provides exceptions for some large medical measuring devices where no mercury-free alternatives exist yet.
In
a controversial move, it also excluded vaccines that use mercury as a
preservative, since the risk from these vaccines is considered low and
for many developing nations removing them would entail losing access to
vaccines altogether, Tim Kasten, head of UNEP's chemicals division
explained.
Amid pressure from dentist groups, the treaty also did
not provide a cut-off date for the use of dental fillings using mercury,
but did agree that the product should be phased down.
Non-governmental
groups at the talks meanwhile lamented that the treaty fell short in
addressing the greatest sources of mercury in the environment:
small-scale gold mining, which directly threatens the health of the some
10-15 million people working in this field and contaminates water and
air, and emissions from coal-buring power plants.
"We're
disappointed," Joe DiGangi, a senior advisor with an environmental
umbrella group called IPEN, told AFP, saying that "the two biggest
sources of mercury have only weak controls on them."
For
coal-fired power plants, the treaty calls only for control and reduction
of mercury emissions "where feasible", which is "vague and very
discretional," he said.
As for small gold mining activities, using
mercury will still be allowed, meaning imports and exports of the metal
for this process will be legal, and governments will only be required
to control the activity if they deem it "more than insignificant --
whatever that means," DiGangi said.
UNEP's Steiner acknowledged
the criticism but stressed that the treaty "is a dynamic instrument,"
insisting it would evolve over time to address all the areas of concern.
Switzerland
and Norway, which initiated the process a decade ago, had along with
Japan pledged an initial $3.0 million to get things started.
Once up
and running the treaty will provide funds to help transition away from
mercury-linked products and processes through the UN's existing Global
Environment Facility (GEF), and probably also a second mechanism,
organisers said.
