Fourth report from the POPs convention
December 8, 2023
Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa

by Roger Bate

Background:

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is proposing a legally binding international legal instrument on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). This week in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa, the fifth and final negotiations of this legal instrument take place. Of particular interest to the Save Children From Malaria campaign is that one of the 12 chemicals to be listed is DDT, which is used in malaria control. The key question for us is will DDT use be restricted, and if so, how?

Report
Some of the delegates were up until 3am (Thursday), in an effort to resolve key issues, but the use of the precautionary principle, concerns about trade matters and financial compensation threaten to turn the conference into a war of attrition.

Malaria News

Africa Fighting Malaria made the centerfold of the South Africa Dept. of Environment's daily newsletter, "Motions@POPS", yesterday under the title "DDT African Messiah". No other NGO has been so prominently featured in the newsletter.

We are not far from a resolution of the DDT issue. As mentioned before, South Africa has submitted a paper to the conference which recommends that DDT be listed on Annex B (restriction), and only a few countries, including the Arab States, object to this listing. Other than the decision about which annex DDT resides upon, the only bracketed text (those issues where consensus has not been reached) concerns compensation for moving from DDT to its alternatives. Until this is debated in the plenary session it won't be finalized, but that should be Friday.

Compensation

From the beginning of these negotiations in 1998, there has been significant delegate disagreement about funding for less developed countries to phase out POPs. Today, although disagreements were lessening, agreement is still a long way off. Issues to be resolved include whether funding will be mandatory or voluntary, whether it will be based upon grants or loans, and which facilities (GEF, the World Bank or other mechanisms) will grant that funding, and of course, how much will be granted, and when. The POPs Chairman, John Buccini of Canada, asked for the major issues to be resolved outside of plenary sessions by a "contact group of delegates", because reaching agreement in plenary simply takes too long.

However, the Nigerian spokeswoman for the Group of 77 nations (plus China), claimed that it is discussion that is too important to be left to a contact group (especially where no interpretation is provided and all discussions are in English). As a compromise, and in an extraordinary move, a large contact group (of 30) was established in the main ballroom and plenary was temporarily abandoned. With less than half the time for the conference remaining, stalemate, as in the recent Hague climate talks, remains a possibility.

Precautionary principle
The US issued a paper designed to slap down the EU zest for precaution. US delegates demand that "precaution must be exercised as part of a science-based approach to regulation, and not as a substitute for such an approach." Furthermore "additional references to precaution or references to a lack of scientific certainty could undermine the science-based approach" agreed to by the negotiators. Such proposed references also appear to be an attempt to renegotiate the terms of the Rio Principle 15 in this negotiation, an effort that the United States finds inappropriate in the negotiations on POPS. For those who follow debates on the PP and those who know diplomatic-speak, this is very strong language. It remains to be seen whether the EU will back down. Both parties seem eager to complete negotiations, and although some people think it a deal breaker, this reporter doesn't.

Other news

The host delegation has attacked various NGOs for trying to overtly influence the proceedings. In a strongly worded attack they said, "Quite frankly there is one too many NGOs that exist to fulfill quota requirements of powerful donors...The recent grandstanding by the World Wildlife Fund on South Africa's record on POPs is unacceptable. An assessment or call for action should at least be based on facts...Can we see some evidence?" So far the WWF has produced no evidence that SA is a "toxic hotspot".

Why are there so many NGOs here?

It appears to me that the NGO community has far more people at the meeting than people who represent the continent of Africa. While there are about 12 people from industry, and about 8 from the anti-malaria community (including us), there are probably over 100 people from green organizations. Many delegations rely on NGOs writing their submissions and editing text for them (of course they don't admit this publicly, but you can see it happening).

Is it really any wonder that this treaty will favor the wealthy and healthy from the North, when the South is so poorly represented? And you know what's the cause of the massive NGO presence - the US stock market, that bastion of capitalism. Because of the strong US economy, US foundations must give money away like it's going out of fashion. Flying people around the world to "do good" is a great way to spend a lot of money (although according to these groups, flying itself is not good for the environment).

UNEP pays for one representative to come from each of the developing countries, but when one person is required to attend all the plenary sessions (besides that, the fact that their country is not represented at all the break-out groups), individual delegates are unlikely to be in a fit state to judge what they have agreed to by Saturday night. By the end of the weekend we may have reached consent, to be sure, but it's not necessarily informed consent.

(Dr. Roger Bate is a director of the South African NGO Africa Fighting Malaria, www.fightingmalaria.org, and co-author of "When Politics Kills: Malaria and the DDT Story" published this week by the Competitive Enterprise Institute.)