Death of the Montreal Protocol?

How industry lobbyists control the protection of the ozone layer

by WAYNE HILTZ

Giving the chemical industry's main lobby group an award for protecting the ozone layer is like giving the tobacco industry a public health award for lung cancer prevention.

Yet that's what the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) did earlier this week at its Montreal conference, when it gave an award to the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policies.

"It's certainly a further indication of the chemical industry's influence within the Montreal Protocol," says John Maté, Greenpeace International's ozone campaigner. Ironically, the Alliance was set up in the early '80s to block international controls on chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) use. The Alliance is a coalition of about 500 U.S. producers and users of CFCs. In September 1986, it issued an unexpected policy statement supporting an international regulation of CFCs. Two years later, it announced its support for a phase-out of CFCs.

While the 1987 Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances set up an international CFC phase-out schedule, the industry was by no means opposed. In a 1990 New Scientist article, former UNEP director Dr. Mostafa Tolba stated that the industry supported the accord "because it set up a worldwide schedule for phasing out CFCs no longer protected by patents. This provided companies with an opportunity to market new, more profitable compounds" such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), which were patent-protected.

Ten years later, the corporate connection is again at the forefront on two big issues, the phase-outs of HCFCs and methyl bromide--with the European Union (E.U.) and the U.S. on opposite sides. With no accord reached as of last Tuesday, the day before the conference's scheduled end, eco-groups held a vigil to protest the lack of progress, saying the Montreal Protocol was on its deathbed. "If they can't make a decision in this [methyl bromide] issue that has been languishing for five years, then we have to call into question this agreement's viability," says Beatrice Olivastri, director of Friends of the Earth Canada.

On HCFCs, eco-groups are calling for a 2010 phase-out in industrialized countries rather than the 2030 specified in the 1987 accord. With new technology such as Greenpeace's Greenfreeze domestic fridge (which is increasingly gaining ground in Europe), the E.U. is pushing for the faster HCFC phase-out, but American industrial interests are opposed. "The U.S. will not budge because they don't want to go back on their promise to industry that they could recoup their investment," Gilfillan says.

On methyl bromide, it's the Europeans who are slowing the phase-out largely because of aggressive lobbying by methyl bromide producers and fumigators in Spain and Italy. And Gilfillan says the U.S., which has a widely praised domestic phase-out target of 2001, is being heavily lobbied. "Rather than take a really hard position, they've sent signals that they could accept 2005."

The final result of both conflicts could spell bad news for the ozone layer and lifeforms--including humans--that depend on it for protection and existence. "Since both aren't budging on their positions, it will mean that we'll get the lowest common denominator and bad agreements on both," Gilfillan says. "It seems clear that some governments are putting industry profits before protecting human health and the environment."

Meanwhile, developing countries are not only intimidated by industry propaganda campaigns, but are also worried about faster phase-outs--largely because they fear that not enough funding will be provided to them with viable but more expensive alternatives. Since the Multilateral fund was set up in 1991, it has kicked in only $650 million--a minuscule amount, given that global annual military spending usually runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

As a potential solution, some eco-groups are proposing a tax on ozone-depleting substances at the producers' doors, with revenues going for research and development of ozone-friendly substances. And to help defray some of the huge health costs due to ozone depletion, Greenpeace's Maté argues for tougher measures--something similar, he suggests, to the recent settlement between the U.S. government and the tobacco industry.

"If the tobacco industry can be held legally responsible for the destruction of human life and for wilful deceit," he says, "then the chemical companies should also be legally compelled to commit their profits to repair the damage their products have caused."