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Brooks Yeager Head of the U.S. Delegation to Persistent Organic Pollutants Negotiations (INC-4) Opening Statement of the United States Bonn, Germany, March 20, 2000

Mr. Chairman, the United States attaches the utmost importance to this Convention, which put an international spotlight on what has been called a "silent plague" of toxic chemicals. While the toxic effect of these chemicals is greatest close to where they are released, their toxicity respects no boundaries, nor are their impacts necessarily dependent on a country's stage of development. These toxics quietly accumulate, infiltrating even the otherwise pristine wilderness, reaching dangerous concentrations in the northern latitudes. They particularly threaten Native peoples, including those living in the United States. We dedicate our efforts here to all people in all parts of the globe affected by these harmful toxics.

Mr. Chairman, the United States shares your goals for this session as set forth in your Scenario Note. We hope to bring particular focus on the concerns, capacity, and needs of the developing world in approaching POPs problems and I will speak more about that later. The developed world has already put in place a framework for POPs controls. Many developing countries, too, recognizing the danger to their own populations, have taken action on POPs, often in cooperation with their developed country partners. But we all need to do more, and our task here is to create the framework for cooperation on that effort.

The United States supports a strong, effective treaty that eliminates POPs where feasible and takes a practical approach establishing meaningful controls and reductions were it is not. This is the way forward to worldwide action: a treaty which is at once rigorous and implementable by as many countries as possible.

For our part, the United States has already ceased production of all intentionally produced POPs and instituted strict controls on major sources of by-product POPs. We seek a similar approach in this treaty, but we recognize the special situation of DDT. We recognize the need to continue critical public health uses of DDT, even as we seek to find and develop cost-effective substitutes, and we are working with the World Health Organization (WHO) in this effort. In addition, once production and use of a POP has been banned, we support a ban on all trade in that POP.

However, no country can meet the strict standards we envisage if they are not put into a risk based context. Pursuit of POPs to the last molecule reaches a point of severely diminished health and environmental returns and exponentially rising costs that are ultimately beyond the reach of any country. For this reason, we have proposed general exemptions for "de minimis" contaminants in products, articles in use when the Treaty takes effect, chemicals used as site-limited closed system intermediates, and small quantities still in the hands of end users. Thanks to the helpful comments of several countries, we have clarified and tightened these exemptions without, we hope, changing their usefulness.

For byproduct POPs, the treaty should aim at continuing minimization based on national action plans which recognize the need, among other things, to address the problem both by preventing formation and reducing release of by-product POPs; and the priority to be attached to major new sources. Our own national experience tells us that vital progress can be made without committing to a goal of elimination, which is not only not feasible but also has significant development implications. Control measures for by-product POPs like dioxins are new to many countries. We agree we all need to do more on by-products, but we need a practical approach, to enable as many countries as possible to endorse and implement these controls.

The United States has been carefully considering calls by the developing countries and countries in transition for technical and financial assistance to help them fulfil their obligations under the Convention. The United States accepts that some countries will need technical and financial help to complement their own efforts and is prepared to offer support. Where countries' own resources are not adequate to control POPs, the US supports using and as necessary adapting existing mechanisms such as the Global Environment Fund, or GEF, and other multilateral and bilateral programs, to assist in POPs implementation.

For its own part, the United States is, and will continue to be, an active partner to developing countries and countries in transition in helping expand the capacity of countries to tackle POPs problems. As detailed in a CRP which will be circulated, we have spent at least $13.5 million since 1997 to help these countries on POPs. For example, we have staged and supported POPs workshops throughout the world. From 1997-2000, the U.S. contributed $4.3 million to UNEP for support of the POPs negotiations, including information exchange and technical assistance to developing countries and countries in transition. The United States will commit $500,000 for a GEF/UNEP regional assessment of persistent toxic substances this year and we are actively considering aimed at ensuring internet connectivity to all chemical regulators around the world. While we do not find a new obligatory POPs fund necessary or politically feasible, we think these programs and those of other countries and international organizations, taken even in the absence of a treaty, demonstrate the serious commitment we have to significantly assist developing countries and countries in transition in building and implementing their own POPs programs to help fulfill their treaty commitments.

With those remarks, Mr. Chairman, I thank you and look forward to a productive session here at INC-4 and a successful conclusion at INC-5 by the end of this year.

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