Talks fail to agree on ozone damaging fumigant -US
14 Nov 2003 12:55:05 GMT
By James Macharia NAIROBI, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Environmental negotiations seen by U.S. fruit growers as critical to future profitability failed on Friday to reach consensus on a U.S. request to increase use of a fumigant known to destroy the ozone layer, delegates said. Use of the controversial fumigant methyl bromide is likely to be tackled at an extraordinary meeting next year, said delegates and environmentalists at a U.N.-sponsored negotiating conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. "It would be designed to resolve the difficulties we had at this meeting. We are disappointed that there was no consensus," U.S. delegation head Claudia MacMurray told Reuters. "We didn't reach a consensus on methyl bromide. The parties are likely to schedule a special meeting next year and come back at it again," said David Doniger, policy director at the U.S.-based advocacy group Natural Resources Defence Council. An official conference spokesman had no immediate comment but a draft agreement obtained by Reuters proposes the members hold an extraordinary meeting of the parties in the Montreal Protocol either in March or April in Montreal, Canada. Methyl bromide, which kills soil pests before crops are planted, is due to be phased out by all developed nations by January 1, 2005, under a global pact to protect the atmosphere. Around 180 signatory countries to the Montreal Protocol had been due to vote on the U.S. request on Friday at the close of a weeklong meeting on the ozone layer at the United Nations Environmental Programme headquarters in Nairobi. The vote was now not expected to take place. The protocol -- seen by experts as the most successful global environmental treaty -- requires signatory states to phase out the use of some 95 chemicals that damage the ozone layer, a stratum of the atmosphere that protects the earth from ultraviolet radiation, which can cause skin cancer. The United States, the European Union and Japan have cut down the use of methyl bromide to 30 percent of existing stocks, but now the United States wants to be allowed to increase its use to 38.2 percent in 2005. A U.S. government delegation and farm groups say although they have made significant cutbacks in its use, they need more time to find effective substitute fumigants for crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, strawberries and sweet potatoes. Ozone experts and the European Union delegates opposed the request because it could reverse the gains achieved so far. Doniger calls methyl bromide the most dangerous ozone depleting chemical still in widespread use and also a cause of prostate cancer. "We wanted a decision as soon as possible but we also wanted a favourable outcome. Farmers will be in limbo on what to do because they needed to know in advance so that they can plan for their crops," said Mark Murai, chairman of the 600-member California's Strawberry Commission and a U.S. delegate.
A hyena cools itself in mucky waters on the drying shores of Lake Nakuru in Kenya's Rift Valley, 160km (99 miles) west of the capital Nairobi, December 18, 2009. World leaders ...
